Periodic Reporting for period 2 - GENEQUALITY (CHILDREN AND GENDER INEQUALITY)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2022-11-01 al 2024-04-30
In all developed economies, significant gender inequalities in labor market outcomes persist, and gender convergence seems to have come to a halt over the past 20 years. Understanding the stalling of gender convergence is a sweeping challenge for modern economies, and a gripping puzzle for social sciences. One promising line of investigation has focused on children. GENEQUALITY aims at better understanding the impact of children on gender inequality. Economists have long understood that the arrival of children affects the labor market outcomes of men and women. But recent research suggests children might actually be central to the persistence of gender inequality in labor market outcomes. Using longitudinal data, a stream of papers show that, precisely at the arrival of kids, women experience a sharp drop in earnings, as well as in all other labor market outcomes compared to men. This stark divergence in outcomes of women relative to men when children are born is usually referred to as the “child penalty”.
GENEQUALITY tackles three important questions:
1) What is the true impact of children on labor market outcomes? Can it actually be identified?
2) What are the mechanisms underlying “child penalties” and gender specialisation?
3) What are the welfare implications of “child penalties”?
GENEQUALITY tackles three important questions:
1) What is the true impact of children on labor market outcomes? Can it actually be identified?
2) What are the mechanisms underlying “child penalties” and gender specialisation?
3) What are the welfare implications of “child penalties”?
I have first made significant progress on the first part of the project. This part focuses on women affected by MRKH syndrome to identify the anticipatory as well as long run effects of children on the lifecycle trajectories of women relative to men. The results confirm the presence of significant long run penalties on female careers of the arrival of children. They also show the presence of significant but small anticipatory effects.
The second part of the project has also made significant progress. We have constructed an Atlas of child penalties around the world. The estimation of child penalties is based on pseudo-event studies of first child birth using cross-sectional data. The pseudo-event studies are validated against true event studies using panel data for a subset of countries. Most countries display clear and sizable child penalties: men and women follow parallel trends before parenthood, but diverge sharply and persistently after parenthood. While this pattern is pervasive, there is enormous variation in the magnitude of the effects across different regions of the world. The fraction of gender inequality explained by child penalties varies systematically with economic development and proxies for structural transformation. At low levels of development, child penalties represent a minuscule fraction of gender inequality. But as economies develop — incomes rise and the labor market transitions from subsistence agriculture towards salaried work in industry and services — child penalties take over as the dominant driver of gender inequality. Because parenthood is often tied to marriage, we also investigate the existence of marriage penalties in female employment. In general, women experience both marriage and child penalties, but their relative importance depends on economic development. The development process is associated with a substitution from marriage penalties to child penalties, with the former gradually converging to zero.
The third part of the project is also in good shape. The first wave of the survey of the universe of Danish new parents is almost entirely completed, and the second wave is currently in the field. The first results reveal that the large reform in parental leave policy, forcing men to take a larger share of parental leave, had negligible effects on gender norms and beliefs.
The second part of the project has also made significant progress. We have constructed an Atlas of child penalties around the world. The estimation of child penalties is based on pseudo-event studies of first child birth using cross-sectional data. The pseudo-event studies are validated against true event studies using panel data for a subset of countries. Most countries display clear and sizable child penalties: men and women follow parallel trends before parenthood, but diverge sharply and persistently after parenthood. While this pattern is pervasive, there is enormous variation in the magnitude of the effects across different regions of the world. The fraction of gender inequality explained by child penalties varies systematically with economic development and proxies for structural transformation. At low levels of development, child penalties represent a minuscule fraction of gender inequality. But as economies develop — incomes rise and the labor market transitions from subsistence agriculture towards salaried work in industry and services — child penalties take over as the dominant driver of gender inequality. Because parenthood is often tied to marriage, we also investigate the existence of marriage penalties in female employment. In general, women experience both marriage and child penalties, but their relative importance depends on economic development. The development process is associated with a substitution from marriage penalties to child penalties, with the former gradually converging to zero.
The third part of the project is also in good shape. The first wave of the survey of the universe of Danish new parents is almost entirely completed, and the second wave is currently in the field. The first results reveal that the large reform in parental leave policy, forcing men to take a larger share of parental leave, had negligible effects on gender norms and beliefs.
Women continue to face large and persistent drops in terms of all labor market outcomes at the arrival of children. Researchers now understand that these “child penalties” on women may account for a substantial fraction of the large level of gender inequality that persists in the labor market in all developed nations.
But the mapping that goes from children to gender inequality and welfare still remains mostly unchartered. First, research has only been able to identify the effect of children once they arrive, missing all the potentially large anticipatory effects of children, in terms of education, marriage choices, etc. that significantly impact the lifetime trajectories of men and women. Second the mechanisms underlying the persistence of “child penalties” and of such strict gender specialization at the arrival of children are not well understood. Comparative advantages have a hard time accounting for the stickiness of large “child penalties” in the face of the massive changes in relative education and in the relative cost of child care. Is it about preferences then, or cultural norms? If so, how are these formed? Finally, we still do not understand how these “child penalties” actually translate into welfare.
Building on unique administrative data pooled across countries, on new measures from the field of natural language processing, on compelling quasi-experimental designs and on established techniques in public finance to parsimoniously map empirical moments into welfare evaluation, GENEQUALITY i) sheds new light on the impact of children on gender inequality, ii) provides new evidence on the mechanisms underlying strong gender specialization in parenthood, iii) maps the welfare consequences of “child penalties”, and iv) characterizes the optimal policies aimed at addressing them.
But the mapping that goes from children to gender inequality and welfare still remains mostly unchartered. First, research has only been able to identify the effect of children once they arrive, missing all the potentially large anticipatory effects of children, in terms of education, marriage choices, etc. that significantly impact the lifetime trajectories of men and women. Second the mechanisms underlying the persistence of “child penalties” and of such strict gender specialization at the arrival of children are not well understood. Comparative advantages have a hard time accounting for the stickiness of large “child penalties” in the face of the massive changes in relative education and in the relative cost of child care. Is it about preferences then, or cultural norms? If so, how are these formed? Finally, we still do not understand how these “child penalties” actually translate into welfare.
Building on unique administrative data pooled across countries, on new measures from the field of natural language processing, on compelling quasi-experimental designs and on established techniques in public finance to parsimoniously map empirical moments into welfare evaluation, GENEQUALITY i) sheds new light on the impact of children on gender inequality, ii) provides new evidence on the mechanisms underlying strong gender specialization in parenthood, iii) maps the welfare consequences of “child penalties”, and iv) characterizes the optimal policies aimed at addressing them.