The Nordic Gender Equality Paradox
30 May 2016 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, discrimination, gender, labour economics Tags: Finland, gender wage gap, glass ceiling, Norway, Sweden
Bill Allen on the profitability of discrimination against women
26 May 2016 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, discrimination, entrepreneurship, gender, labour economics Tags: employer discrimination, gender wage gap
Source: Bonus Quotation of the Day… – Cafe Hayek from William Allen, The Midnight Economist.
More on the top 1% giving women a pass on the great wage stagnation
23 May 2016 Leave a comment
in discrimination, economic history, economics of media and culture, gender, human capital, labour economics, labour supply, occupational choice, poverty and inequality Tags: gender wage gap, middle class stagnation, reversing gender gap, wage stagnation
Source: Read Online — Visualizing Economics.
Is it merchandising that drives gender bias in Hollywood casting?
17 May 2016 Leave a comment
in discrimination, economics of media and culture, gender, industrial organisation, labour economics, labour supply, occupational choice, survivor principle Tags: entrepreneurial alertness, gender gap, gender wage gap, Hollywood economics
Iron Man 3 changed the gender of the film’s villain from female to male after pressure from the production company Marvel, which feared toy merchandise would not sell as well.
This is a rather frank admission of what drives gender bias in Hollywood casting decisions. Its customer preferences – customer discrimination. It was not nasty producers and directors choosing not to hire women.
It was producers and directors casting a movie that might sell at the box office given what the box office wants. The great majority of box office sales is outside of the USA and US cultural values, interests and concepts of humour.
Hollywood is a cutthroat market where producers and directors do do whatever it takes to make their movie sell at the box office. But would not last very long if they indulge their personal preferences at the expense of the box office.
Not every movie has the merchandising potential of action films but they still have to pay careful attention to what audiences want to avoid having produced a run of flops and never get financing again.
That is not made any easier by the first law of Hollywood economics, which is nobody knows nothing. Audiences have a constant demand for novelty but they do not know what they want delay see it.
Giving birth in Australia was seriously dangerous until the mid-20th century
14 May 2016 Leave a comment
in economic history, gender, health economics, labour economics, labour supply Tags: maternal health, maternal labour force participation, The Great Escape
Medical progress contributed more than people realise to women’s liberation. The key area of progress was far fewer deaths in childbirth as the chart below for Australia shows. Deaths from childbirth disappeared from mortality statistics in the 1940s and 1950s.
Source: Australian Institute of Health and Welfare via Sydney Morning Herald This chart shows how you will probably die, and it’s changed a lot in 100 years.
The next key area of medical progress was fewer disabling injuries subsequent because of childbirth that kept women out of the workforce for several years if not permanently. In Gender Roles and Medical Progress, Stefania Albanesi and Claudia Olivetti say
Consider a typical woman born around 1900. She married at 21 and gave birth to more than three live children between age 23 and 33. The high fetal mortality rate implied an even greater number of pregnancies, so that she would be pregnant for 36% of this time.
Health risks in connection to pregnancy and childbirth were severe. Septicemia, toxaemia, hemorrhages and obstructed labour could lead to prolonged physical disability and, in the extreme, death. In 1920 one mother died for each 125 living births. At a rate of 3.6 pregnancies per woman, the compounded risk of death from maternal causes was 2.9%.
For every death, twenty times as many mothers were estimated to suffer different degrees of disablement annually. Many maternal conditions had very long lasting or chronic effects on health, hindering women’s ability to work beyond their childbearing years.
Death in childbirth and serious complications from childbirth been forgotten in modern memory. So much so that there can be an entire year in New Zealand when no child nor mother dies in childbirth. When that does happen, there is a coroner’s enquiry.
The implications of medical progress around childbirth for female life expectancy has been equally forgotten as Albanesi and Olivetti explain
The development of bacteriology, the introduction of sulfominydes and antibiotics, and the diffusion of blood banks dramatically decreased the death rate from sepsis and hemorrhage. More specific interventions, such as the standardization of obstetric practices and the increased availability of pre-natal care, reduced the incidence of hypertensive disorders of pregnancy and obstructed labour, a causal factor for many forms of post-partum disability.
These developments lead to a stark decline in maternal mortality and a rise in the female-male differential in life expectancy at age 20 from 1.5 years in 1920 to 6 years in 1960.
At the beginning of the last century, the burden of childbirth and breastfeeding simply made it impossible for married women to work in any significant number as Albanesi and Olivetti explain
In addition, due to the lack of reliable alternatives, most infants were exclusively breast fed. Women would then be nursing for approximately a third of the time between age 23 and 33.
Since the average time required to feed one child ranges between 14 and 17 hours per week, with a 40 hour workweek, mothers would be nursing for 35%-43% of their potential working time in childbearing years.
Not surprisingly given this burden, few married women worked. Only 5.4% of married women aged 25 to 34 were in the labour force in 1900.
There was an extraordinary reduction in the number of years lost in disablement after childbirth in the early and mid-20th century as Albanese in Olivetti’s explain
…the years lost to disabilities associated with maternal conditions declined from 2.31 per pregnancy in 1920 to just 0.17 in 1960.
Medical progress around childbirth is the most important force driving the rise in the participation of married women during childbearing years and post-childbearing between 1935 and 1965. The health burden of giving birth is now measured in weeks rather than years.
Many sex differences are small on average but large at the extremes
11 May 2016 Leave a comment
in discrimination, economics, gender, health economics Tags: Bell Curce, gender gap
The gender wage gap uses bogus statistics
08 May 2016 Leave a comment
in discrimination, gender, labour economics Tags: gender wage gap
The top 1% gave Canadian women a pass on real wage stagnation too
07 May 2016 Leave a comment
in applied welfare economics, discrimination, economic history, gender, labour economics, labour supply Tags: Canada, gender wage gap, middle class stagnation, reversing gender gap, top 1%, wage stagnation
There are three countries in the world where your boss is more likely to be a woman
06 May 2016 Leave a comment
in discrimination, gender, labour economics, labour supply, occupational choice Tags: gender wage gap, reversing gender gap
Does “Fair Trade” Help?
29 Apr 2016 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, development economics, economics, gender, growth disasters, growth miracles, labour economics, labour supply Tags: fair trade
How to survive the wacky gender politics on campus
28 Apr 2016 Leave a comment
in discrimination, economics of education, economics of media and culture, gender Tags: gender politics, political correctness, safe spaces
@The_TUC confirm that motherhood penalty has nothing to do with employer discrimination @CHSommers
28 Apr 2016 1 Comment
in discrimination, gender, human capital, labour economics, labour supply, occupational choice Tags: asymmetric information, asymmetric marriage premium, British economy, employer discrimination, family wage gap, gender wage gap, marriage and divorce, marriage bar, motherhood penalty
Source: Trades Union Congress – The Motherhood Pay Penalty.
The British Trades Union Congress (TUC) has released the preliminary findings of research into the 1970 Birth Cohort Study. The union research into the gender wage gap finds that
The overall gender pay gap of 34 per cent for this cohort of full-time workers who were born in 1970. This gap is largely due to the impact of parenthood on earnings – the women earning less and the men earning more after having children.
Mothers in the 1970 Birth Cohort Study who are in full-time work earn 11 per cent less than full-time women without children at age 42. When factors such as education, region and occupational social class are taken into account, this motherhood pay penalty in full-work falls to 7 per cent.
This finding by the union research into the 1970 birth cohort is no surprise. For 40 years at least now it has been known that having children and and spacing those children over a longer period carries a career penalty for women.
Recent work finds that the motherhood penalty is larger for those women pursuing careers where long hours or rigid hours is required and if they wish to combine careers and motherhood. Much of that research is led by Claudia Goldin.
It is difficult for employers to discriminate against women if the gender wage gap is not only driven by motherhood but also by having their first child past the age of 33. Male chauvinistic employers simply do not have the necessary information about whether women are mothers and and whether they had their first child before or after the age of 33.
For employer discrimination to drive the gender wage gap, these male chauvinist employers must know:
- whether female applicants are mothers, and
- the age of female applicants who are mothers when they had their first child.
This information on the age of first motherhood is essential for employer discrimination to be driving the gender wage gap. This information about the age of first motherhood must be in the hands of the employer so that they do not shortlist and do not promote women who are mothers before age 33.
Of 534 occupations tracked by BLS, ONLY 7 pay women more than men ampr.gs/1oJzOrh http://t.co/XRunQkiav8—
American Progress (@amprog) January 29, 2015
It would be handy to know why why these male chauvinistic employers have such strong prejudices against women who are mothers before the age of 33 but have few prejudices against women who are mothers after age 33.
Another piece of useful information is how do male chauvinist employers get their hands on the partnership status of mothers when they had their first child. As the Trades Union Congress found
There is a bonus of 12 per cent for being in a couple when women had their first child.
If the gender wage gap is due to employer discrimination rather than the choices by women about motherhood, there seems to be a 12% wage bonus for single mothers who can successfully lie to male chauvinist employers about whether they are in a stable relationship when they had their first child.
Keeping up appearances for the sake of the children has a whole new meaning if there is 12% wage bonus in it if male chauvinist employers can be fooled. There is a wage bonus of several times that if mothers can keep their children secret from their discriminating employer.
When there is a marriage bar in the Australian Public Service, there were instances where women kept their children or marriages secret to avoid being sacked. One woman had four children before she decided to make an honest man of the father. She lost her job.
@The_TUC confirms motherhood penalty is nothing to do with discrimination @CHSommers
28 Apr 2016 Leave a comment
in discrimination, gender, human capital, labour economics, labour supply, occupational choice Tags: asymmetric information, asymmetric marriage premium, British economy, employer discrimination, family wage gap, gender wage gap, marriage and divorce, marriage bar, motherhood penalty
Source: Trades Union Congress – The Motherhood Pay Penalty.
The British Trades Union Congress (TUC) has released the preliminary findings of research into the 1970 Birth Cohort Study. The union research into the gender wage gap finds that
The overall gender pay gap of 34 per cent for this cohort of full-time workers who were born in 1970. This gap is largely due to the impact of parenthood on earnings – the women earning less and the men earning more after having children.
Mothers in the 1970 Birth Cohort Study who are in full-time work earn 11 per cent less than full-time women without children at age 42. When factors such as education, region and occupation are taken into account, this motherhood pay penalty in full-work falls to 7 per cent.
This finding by the union research into the 1970 birth cohort is no surprise. For 40 years at least now it has been known that having children and and spacing those children over a longer period carries a career penalty for women.
More recent work has emphasised the motherhood penalty is larger for those women pursuing careers where long hours or rigid hours is required and if they wish to combine careers and motherhood. Much of that research is led by Claudia Goldin.
It is difficult for employers to discriminate against women if the gender wage gap is not only driven by motherhood but also by having their first child past the age of 33. Male chauvinistic employers simply do not have the necessary information about whether women are mothers and and whether they had their first child before or after the age of 33.
For employer discrimination to drive the gender wage gap, rather than women’s choices about balancing career and motherhood, these male chauvinist employers must know:
- whether female applicants are mothers, and
- the age of female applicants who are mothers when they had their first child.
This information on the age of first motherhood is essential for employer discrimination to be driving the gender wage gap. This information about the age of first motherhood must be in the hands of the employer so that they do not shortlist, do not promote and do not hire women who are mothers before the age of 33.
Of 534 occupations tracked by BLS, ONLY 7 pay women more than men ampr.gs/1oJzOrh http://t.co/XRunQkiav8—
American Progress (@amprog) January 29, 2015
It would be handy to know why why these male chauvinistic employers have such strong prejudices against women who are mothers before the age of 33 but have no prejudices against women who are mothers after the age of 33. It would
Another piece of you useful information is how do male chauvinist employers get their hands on the partnership status of mothers when they had their first child. As the Trades Union Congress found
There is a bonus of 12 per cent for being in a couple when women had their first child.
Why are the prejudices of male chauvinist employers dampened when the mother is married or in a stable relationship when they had their first child? Why are these male chauvinist employers so prejudiced against in mothers?
There seems to be a 12% wage bonus for single mothers who can successfully lie to male chauvinist employers about whether they are in a stable relationship back when they had the first child.
Keeping up appearances for the sake of the children has a whole new meaning if there is a 12% wage bonus in it if male chauvinist employers can be fooled. There is a wage bonus of several times that if mothers can keep their children secret from their discriminating employer.
When there is a marriage bar in the Australian Public Service, there were instances where women kept their children or marriages secret to avoid being sacked. One woman had four children before she decided to make an honest man of the father. She lost her job.
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
Recent Comments