Women Working: What’s the Pill Got to Do With It?
01 Dec 2016 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, discrimination, economic history, economics of education, gender, health economics, human capital, labour economics, labour supply, occupational choice Tags: contraception, gender gap, gender wage gap
Deirdre McCloskey on why intellectuals prefer socialism
13 Nov 2016 1 Comment
in history of economic thought, labour economics, Marxist economics, occupational choice Tags: Deirdre McCloskey, intellectuals and socialism
Source: Liberalism, Neoliberalism, and the Literary Left Interview by W. Stockton and D. Gilson (forthcoming).
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.
Why Do People Become Islamic Extremists?
18 Oct 2016 Leave a comment
in defence economics, economics of crime, economics of religion, labour economics, law and economics, occupational choice Tags: economics of oppositional identities, war on terror
More on is there a Republican in the house?
02 Oct 2016 Leave a comment
in economics of education, occupational choice, politics - USA
Source: Faculty Voter Registration in Economics, History, Journalism, Law, and Psychology · Econ Journal Watch : Voter registration, academia, ideology, political parties, professors via Anti-Dismal: Latest issue of Econ Journal Watch.
Homer Simpson: An economic analysis
28 Sep 2016 Leave a comment
in economics, human capital, labour economics, labour supply, occupational choice, television Tags: The Simpsons
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
Women and WW II – Rosie the Riveter
10 Sep 2016 Leave a comment
in economics, labour economics, labour supply, occupational choice, politics - USA, population economics, war and peace Tags: female labour force participation, female labour supply, World War II
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.
An adult start of a criminal career is uncommon
18 Aug 2016 Leave a comment
in economics of crime, human capital, labour economics, law and economics, occupational choice Tags: crime and punishment, criminal deterrence, law and order
% employees working more than 50 hours per week, 2014 OECD area
15 Aug 2016 6 Comments
in labour economics, labour supply, occupational choice, public economics Tags: hours worked, taxation and labour supply
Not coincidentally, countries with high marginal income tax rates have low levels of long hours worked per week.
Data extracted on 14 Aug 2016 01:52 UTC (GMT) from OECD.Stat; Data does not include the self-employed.
College and post-graduate wage premium in the English speaking countries, France, S. Korea, Finland, Denmark, Norway and Sweden
31 Jul 2016 Leave a comment
in economics of education, human capital, labour economics, occupational choice Tags: Australia, British economy, Canada, College premium, Denmark, education premium, Finland, France, graduate premium, Ireland, Korea, Norway, post-graduate premium, Sweden
Source: Education at a Glance 2015, section 6.
Political leanings of American professors @robhosking
29 Jul 2016 2 Comments
in economics of education, labour economics, occupational choice, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA Tags: academic bias
Sociologists are rather level-headed compared to that hotbed of political bias, which is American history professors. Hardly any of them see themselves as a Republican. I must take back a few nasty things I said about political bias and sociologists.
Source: THE SOCIAL AND POLITICAL VIEWS OF AMERICAN PROFESSORS Neil Gross and Solon Simmons, Working Paper, September 24, 2007
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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