Parental Leave Policy and Gender Equality in Europe

This article uses data from 2008–10 to analyze parental leave policies in twenty-one European countries and their influence on men's behavior. It examines entitlement characteristics, such as nontransferability, duration, payment, compulsory period, and other policies to assess their effect on the proportion of leave men use out of the total parental leave in each country. The findings, which suggest that a large majority of men take nontransferable and highly paid leave, and a small minority take other types, provide the basis for developing the Parental Leave Equality Index (PLEI). PLEI ranks countries by the degree to which parental leave policies reinforce or diminish the gendered division of labor. Results indicate that although Iceland's parental leave policies do the most to advance gender equity, no country has equal, nontransferable, and well-paid leave for each parent. This policy arrangement would be a precondition to men's and women's equal participation in childcare.     

论经济平等权

近年来,因经济利益受到侵害而产生的法律争议越来越多,其背后所凸显的经济平等的理念诉求与权利安排逐渐引起人们的高度关注.本文通过对经济平等的分析,首次提出经济平等权的概念.在探讨经济平等权存在必要性的基础上,本文从内涵、性质、特征、权利类型等方面对其进行了法律界定,并对经济平等权和经济自由权进行了比较,进而对我国经济平等权制度进行考察,揭示了当下制度中存在的一些瑕疵与不足,并初步提出我国经济平等权制度的优化思路及建议.     

The Many Dimensions of Gender Equality and Their Impact on Economic Growth

This study explores the multidimensional nature of gender equality and its influence on economic growth across 64 countries from 2000–2011 using an endogenous growth model. After controlling for standard growth correlates, the empirical results show that countries that protect the economic rights of women experience higher real GDP per capita growth rates. Furthermore, after controlling for a country’s religious affiliation, the importance of religion to the lives of people living in a country had a negative influence on economic growth. Intensely held religious beliefs are strongly correlated with gender inequitable views. These attitudes might serve as an important channel through which these gender biases are institutionalized in economic practices and act to slow economic growth.     

Engendering Economic Recovery: Modeling Alternatives to Austerity in Europe

This article explores a gendered expansionary macroeconomic scenario for Europe as an alternative to current austerity policies over the medium term. Using a non-equilibrium structuralist macroeconomic model, it demonstrates that the dual aim of economic growth and increases in men’s and women’s employment can be achieved by adopting gender-sensitive expansionary macroeconomic policies. Based on historical data series, three scenarios for Europe for the 2015–25 period are compared: continued austerity, a gender-neutral expansionary scenario, and a gendered expansionary scenario. Projections for the gendered expansionary scenario suggest that 7.4 million more jobs could be created for women in the Eurozone and United Kingdom by reversing austerity policies and gendering and increasing government expenditure and private investment. Further, higher growth rates under this scenario lead to significant reductions of debt-to-GDP ratios and lower budget deficits. The study recommends Europe should roll back austerity policies and embark on a new gender-aware economic trajectory.     

Gender Inequality in the Spanish Public Pension System

This contribution studies revenue sharing in the public pension system in Spain from a gender perspective, revealing that differences are evident in the percentage of men and women entitled to different types of pensions and in the average fiscal amount per pension for men and women. Using 2010 data, the study analyzes how labor market conditions are reflected in pension type and amount for women pensioners, yielding two important conclusions: the income of women pensioners decreases, relative to men, with age; and the degree of inequality of pensions among women is lower than that among men. These gender differences owe to the contributory character of the system, which reproduces the labor market inequalities of both genders – inequalities that ultimately derive from the social division of roles in which women remain responsible for unpaid care work. This conclusion is consistent with similar studies on other European countries and world regions.     

中国义务教育投入地区性差异的实证分析

平等地接受教育是公民的基本权利之一,教育投入的地区性差异问题不仅关系到教育机会均等、落后地区的儿童得到法律保护的受教育权利,而且关系到整个国民经济的健康、可持续发展以及和谐社会的建设。对中国义务教育经费地区占有的公平度进行分析,找出中国基础教育财政投入在地区上的差异,便于国家有针对性地制定相关政策。减少不平衡,确保教育投入及整个国民经济的健康发展。     

Gender Empowerment and Educational Attainment of US Immigrants and Their Home-Country Counterparts

This paper examines the educational self-selection of immigrants to the United States across forty-two countries of origin and analyzes determinants of selectivity, including home-country gender status (as measured by the United Nations’ Gender Empowerment Measure [GEM]). Measuring educational self-selection, the study uses data from the 2006 American Community Survey and the 2000 and 2014 Barro–Lee Educational Attainment Measure to construct the Net Difference Index between immigrants and nonmigrants. It compares the educational attainment difference between immigrants and nonmigrants who remain in the home country and demonstrates that immigrants to the US are more educated than their home-country counterparts across all immigrant groups (positive selection). Regression results further indicate that higher gender inequality in the home country influences more highly educated women to migrate. The paper also confirms that higher migration costs and lower income inequality in the home country influence more highly educated individuals to migrate.     

Gender Effects of Trade Openness in Sub-Saharan Africa

ABSTRACT

More than thirty years into the modern era of globalization, scholars are now in a position to evaluate the distributive effects of the policy shifts that have led to greater economic integration. One region of the world for which little robust empirical evidence exists on gendered employment effects is Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). To identify whether there is an impact of economic and trade structure on women's relative access to work, this contribution empirically explores these issues for thirty-eight SSA countries, and for two subgroups. Panel data for the period 1991–2010 is examined using fixed effects, random effects and two-stage least-squares estimation techniques. Findings suggest that trade liberalization has gendered employment effects, with the direction depending on the structure of the economy. However, the more robust finding is that a country's infrastructure has played a determining role in gendered labor market outcomes in SSA since the early 1990s.     

Beyond Equal Rights: Equality of Opportunity in Political Participation

While it is well documented that political participation is stratified by socioeconomic characteristics, it is an open question how this finding bears on the evaluation of the democratic process with respect to its fairness. In this paper, we draw on the analytical tools developed in the equality-of-opportunity literature to answer this question. We investigate to what extent differential political participation is determined by factors that lie beyond individual control (circumstances) rather than being the result of individual effort. Using rich panel data from the United States, we indeed find a lack of political opportunity for the types with the most disadvantaged circumstances. Opportunity shortages tend to complement each other across different forms of participation and persist over time. Family characteristics and psychological conditions during childhood emanate as the strongest determinants of political opportunities.     

湖北省行业资本配置效率实证研究

本文使用了W urgler的模型[1]对湖北省的各行业固定资产增加值与利润总额增加值进行线性回归分析,并由模型回归出的弹性系数来分析湖北省各行业的资本配置效率[2]。分析结果表明,固定资产增加额与利润总额增加值之间存在较高的线性相关性,整体资本配置水平高于全国的资本配置水平,而且市场的配置状况与非市场的配置状况呈现出显著负相关关系。     

Gender gap in self‐employment: The role of risk attitudes

This paper examines the link between the willingness to take risk and the gender gap in self‐employment in the transition economy, where for decades entrepreneurship was considered a crime. Using rich data on risk preferences and entrepreneurial activities, we show that male–female risk tolerance differential is the main determinant of the gender gap in self‐employment in Ukraine. The decomposition results indicate that up to 38% of the gap can be attributed to this factor. Robustness tests support the validity of the baseline findings by suggesting that the results are not confounded by such factors as being unemployed before starting a current job, having a self‐employed household member, or living in a relatively wealthy household before transitioning to self‐employment.     

多元线性回归模型在物流系统预测中的应用

发展物流产业要考虑应具有合理的指导思想及精确的前瞻性。使企业的购存销达到准确的预测,使物流费用最少,社会经济效益最佳,尤其是对用户的服务质量最好,是物流管理所要研究的主要问题。因此,通过在物流系统中引入了多元线性回归模型,较好地解决了物流系统预测的问题,并通过实例说明该方法有较好的实用性。     

Equality of Opportunity in Four Measures of Well‐Being

A growing literature has tried to measure the extent to which individuals have equal opportunities to acquire income. At the same time, policymakers have doubled down on efforts to go beyond income when designing policies to enhance well‐being. We attempt to bridge these two areas by measuring the extent to which individuals have equal opportunities to achieve a high level of well‐being. We use the German Socio‐Economic Panel to measure well‐being in four different ways, including incomes. This makes it possible to determine if the way in which well‐being is measured matters for identifying who the opportunity‐deprived are and for tracking inequality of opportunity over time. We find that, regardless of how well‐being is measured, the same people are opportunity‐deprived and equality of opportunity has improved over the past 10 years. This suggests that going beyond income has little relevance if the objective is to provide equal opportunities.     

The Effects of Gender Differences in Career Interruptions on the Gender Wage Gap in Spain

The aim of this paper is to measure the influence of past employment interruptions on current wages and to analyze how these interruptions contribute to the gender wage gap. The discontinuity in labor trajectories of Spanish employees from 2005 to 2010 is examined by measuring the duration of unemployment periods from employees’ first Social Security affiliation to the last job at which they were employed. Through the use of the database “Muestra Continua de Vidas Laborales” (MCVL), the estimated gender wage gap is found to be 13.1 percent. Introducing an index of interruptions as an explanatory variable, the results show that interruptions have a negative impact on both men's and women's wages. These interruptions explain 7.4 percent of the daily gender wage gap in Spain, primarily because women experience more interruptions in employment than men.     

如何实现经济增长的效率和公平双目标?——基于联立方程模型的研究

如何在保持经济快速增长的同时使收入差距得以缩小,实现效率与公平的双目标,是当前我国经济发展中急需解决的重要问题。文章在分析我国经济增长和收入差距关系内在机制的基础上,建立了一个同时考察经济增长和收入差距影响因素的联立方程模型。省级面板数据的估计结果表明,教育和非国有化既能促进经济增长,也有利于收入差距的缩小,并且该结果对于模型的不同设定具有稳健性。因此,增加教育投资,提高人力资本的存量水平,进一步促进非国有经济的发展,是实现我国经济发展的效率和公平双目标的有效途径。     

农村中小企业信贷需求影响因素的实证研究

运用2009年福建3个设区市中208个农村中小企业的数据,通过建立多元线性回归模型探讨了影响中小企业信贷需求的因素,得到显著性影响因素,即企业的性质、企业信用等级、企业主行业管理工作年限、企业贷款用途和方式、通过熟人介绍以及银企关系、流动比率对中小企业融资能力的影响是显著的,并对结果进行分析。     

The Gender Wealth Gap in Europe: Application of Machine Learning to Predict Individual-level Wealth

This article provides comparative estimates of the gender wealth gaps for 22 European countries, employing data from the Household Finance and Consumption Survey. The data on wealth are collected at the household level, while individual-level data are needed for the estimates of gender wealth gaps. We propose a novel approach using machine learning and model averaging methods to predict individual-level wealth data for multi-person households. Our results suggest that random forest performs best as the predicting tool for this exercise, outperforming elastic net and Bayesian model averaging. The estimated gender wealth gaps tend to be in favor of men, especially at the top of the wealth distribution. Men have 24 percent more wealth than women on average. We also find that a high home ownership rate is associated with a smaller country-level gender wealth gap. Our estimates suggest that the individual-level wealth inequality is on average 3 pp higher than the household-level wealth inequality in multi-member households.     

Gender diversity,cash holdings and the role of the institutional environment: empirical evidence in Europe

While substantial evidence is emerging internationally on higher risk aversion among women than among men, there is less evidence on women’s business choices. We explore some of the reasons for the relationship between gender diversity and cash holdings. Specifically, this paper focuses on the choices involving the stock of cash held by firms in which women have executive roles and can consequently exert a crucial influence on the firms themselves. We estimate our proposed empirical models using a dataset of 12,466 observations from 18 European countries. We find a positive relationship between the presence of women with executive roles in the firm and cash holdings. Women tend to make more conservative choices probably because they are more risk averse than men are. This propensity has a relevant impact on the financial choices of firms when women play a leading role. Notably, the study demonstrates that the institutional environment and industry differences moderate our baseline relationship.     

大学生消费及其影响因素分析--以云南财经大学学生为例

大学生是祖国未来的建设者,是极受社会关注的群体。通过对云南财经大学学生进行随机抽样调查,搜集大学生消费水平、程度以及偏好等信息,了解大学生消费现状。根据最小二乘法原理,通过计量经济学软件Eviews6.0进行实证分析,研究大学生的消费特点,找到影响大学生消费的主要因素,旨在培养大学生健康的消费意识和消费行为,并为其形成正确的消费观提出建议,为青年一代树立榜样。     

Equality of opportunity and the expansion of higher education in the UK

Using nine waves of data from Understanding Society (UKHLS), we study the expansion of higher education in the UK and its consequences for levels of and inequalities in income, physical and mental health. University expansion was characterized by a large increase in the proportion of graduates, with higher rates of graduation among individuals from more advantaged socioeconomic backgrounds. Having controlled for birth cohort and lifecycle effects, there is evidence of significant inequality of opportunity (IOp) in the actual outcomes. However, comparing actual outcomes with counterfactual projections, that freeze the likelihood of university graduation and the joint distribution of graduation and circumstances to the pre-1963 levels, we do not detect an impact of the expansion of higher education on IOp in income and only small reductions in IOp in physical and mental health.