Aren’t exploitative employers supposed to be unusually profitable? Living high on the hog of labour surplus?
27 Nov 2016 Leave a comment
Skill-specific atrophy rates drive the STEM gender gap
08 Nov 2016 Leave a comment
in discrimination, economics of education, gender, human capital, labour economics, minimum wage, occupational choice Tags: gender wage gap, reversing gender gap
Rendall and Rendall (2016) found that women prefer occupations where their skills depreciate slowest when taking time out from motherhood. Verbal and reading skills depreciate at a far slower rate than mathematical and scientific skills so this gives women yet another strong reason to avoid science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) careers.
we show that college educated women avoid occupations requiring significant math skills due to the costly skill atrophy experienced during a career break. In contrast, verbal skills are very robust to career interruptions.
The results support the broadly observed female preference for occupations primarily requiring verbal skills – even though these occupations exhibit lower average wages. Thus, skill-specific atrophy during employment leave and the speed of skill repair upon returning to the labour market are shown to be important factors underpinning women’s occupational outcomes.
Not only do women have vastly superior verbal and reading skills, worth somewhere near 6 to 12 months extra schooling, these skills do not depreciate much during career breaks. Indeed, reading and verbal skills tend to naturally increase with age until your late 60s.
Source: Reading performance (PISA) – International student assessment (PISA) – OECD iLibrary.
Maths skills get rusty if not used while knowledge of computer languages and the like and of specific technologies can be quickly overtaken by events while on maternity leave. Rendall and Rendall (2016) again
… college educated females avoid math-heavy occupations, and pursue verbal-heavy occupations instead. This is due to the high skill atrophy associated with math skills, and the ability of verbal skills to act as “skill insurance” against gaps.
Additionally, for college educated individuals, math is the skill most vulnerable to loss during employment gaps, which also implies a slow rebuilding post-break. In contrast, non-college educated individuals experience a much smaller math skill loss.
Rendall and Rendall’s point about college educated women avoiding maths heavy occupations even if it costs them wages so as to maximise the lifetime income may explain the larger gender wage gap at the top of the income distribution than at the bottom.
At the bottom of the income distribution, skill atrophy do not really matter much. At the top, it do. Women make occupational choices where annual income may be lower but lifetime income may be higher because of the lower rates of skill depreciation when they are out having children.
Discrimination—a mountain of evidence and no solutions
08 Oct 2016 Leave a comment
in discrimination, economics, gender, labour economics Tags: racial discrimination, sex discrimination
Clinton’s New Ad on @realdonaldtrump Mocking Women’s Appearance #NeverTrump
24 Sep 2016 Leave a comment
in discrimination, economics of media and culture, gender, politics - USA Tags: 2016 presidential election
What people miss about the gender wage gap
22 Sep 2016 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, discrimination, gender, human capital, labour economics, labour supply, occupational choice Tags: gender wage gap
Pinksourcing With Kristen Bell
21 Sep 2016 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, discrimination, entrepreneurship, gender, labour economics Tags: entrepreneurial alertness, gender wage gap
Almost all men are stronger than almost all women
30 Aug 2016 Leave a comment
in gender, health economics, labour economics Tags: economics of physiology, gender gap
Gender gap in PISA scores across the OECD, 2012
29 Aug 2016 Leave a comment
in economics of education, gender, human capital, labour economics Tags: gender gaps, reversing gender gap
Source: OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2012.
The gender commuting gap between mothers and fathers
28 Aug 2016 Leave a comment
in discrimination, economics of love and marriage, gender, human capital, labour economics, labour supply, occupational choice, poverty and inequality, transport economics Tags: asymmetric marriage premium, commuting times, compensating differentials, female labour force participation, gender gap, gender wage gap
The first three bars in each cluster of bars are for men. in almost all countries mothers with dependent children spend less time commuting than childless women. This might suggest that working mothers have found workplaces closer to home than women without children. The gender gap in commuting where it is present in the country is larger than the gap between mothers and other women in their commuting time.
Source: OECD Family Database – OECD, Table LMF2.6.A.
Johan Norberg – Nordic Gender Equality
10 Aug 2016 Leave a comment
in discrimination, economics, gender, labour economics Tags: gender wage gap, glass ceiling, Norway, Sweden
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
Recent Comments