Women at Work An Economic Perspective

by Boeri, Tito; Del Boca, Daniela; Pissarides, Christopher

• ISBN13: 9780199281886
• ISBN10: 0199281882
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-08-11
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Covering employment and wage gender gaps, participation of women, fertility, and the welfare of children, this insightful volume considers the trend towards greater participation of women in labour markets. It addresses the trade-offs involved in increasing participation of women in paid employment, setting out a better informed policy debate about these issues, and paving the way to realistic targets and ways to achieve them.

Author Biography

Tito Boeri is Professor of Economics at Bocconi University, Milan and Director of the Fondazione Rodolfo Debenedetti. He is research fellow of CEPR (Centre for Economic Policy Research) and of the Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan. Tito Boeri obtained a Ph.D. in Economics from New York University and was senior economist at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) from 1987 to 1996. Daniela Del Boca is Professor of Economics at the University of Turin and is Director of the newly established Center for Household Income, Labour and Demographic economics (CHILD). She has previously been President of the European Society of Population Economists, Professor at the Politechnic of Milan, Visiting Fellow at the University of Wisconsin, and Visiting Professor at New York University and Johns Hopkins. Christopher Pissarides is Professor of Economics at London School of Economics. He has held visiting positions at Yale University, UCLA, University of California at Berkeley and Harvard University. Christopher is currently a specialist adviser to House of Commons Treasury Committee, a member of the Cyprus Monetary Policy Committee and Research Fellow at the Centre for Economic Policy Research and IZA.

Table of Contents

List of Figures	p. x
List of Tables	p. xii
List of Contributors	p. xiv
Introduction. More Women at Work in Europe	p. 1
Women in the Labor Force: How Well is Europe Doing?	p. 7
Introduction	p. 9
Women's Employment Patterns: Some Facts	p. 12
Women's role in overall employment growth	p. 19
Explanations behind Women's Employment Patterns	p. 25
The rise of female employment: a brief review of explanations	p. 25
Explaining cross-country differences	p. 30
Job Segregation	p. 39
The data	p. 41
Who holds atypical jobs?	p. 44
Preferences for atypical jobs	p. 54
Wages in atypical jobs	p. 58
Conclusions	p. 63
Wage Gaps	p. 65
The evolution of the gender wage gap in the US	p. 66
Cross-country evidence on the gender wage gap	p. 67
Explaining the cross-country evidence on the gender wage gap	p. 72
The importance of sample selection	p. 75
Cross-country institutional differences and the gender wage gap	p. 77
Conclusions	p. 82
Rising Female Participation: The Consequences for Other Workers	p. 83
What do we know?	p. 83
Measuring experience in the labor market	p. 86
Measuring crowding-out in the youth labor market	p. 91
Conclusions	p. 95
What Policy Should Do	p. 96
Comments	p. 105
References	p. 115
Women's Participation in the Labor Market and Fertility: The Effects of Social Policies	p. 121
Introduction	p. 123
Labor Supply and Fertility in Europe and the US	p. 125
Fertility and labor supply: their relationship	p. 125
Temporal patterns and cross-country differences	p. 127
The characteristics of the labor market	p. 131
From maternity to parental leave	p. 135
Childcare systems	p. 138
Child benefits	p. 141
Family patterns and family structure	p. 142
Comparing the effects of social policies	p. 142
Participation and fertility decisions: empirical results from ECHP	p. 148
Conclusions	p. 150
	p. 151
	p. 153
Parental Employment and Children's Welfare	p. 154
Parental employment and children's wellbeing: relationship concerns	p. 154
The impact of parental employment on children's wellbeing: measuring and evaluating the effects	p. 159
A selective review of results	p. 163
Cognitive development and early childhood outcomes	p. 163
Educational attainment	p. 174
Other outcomes	p. 176
Summary of results and discussion	p. 178
The importance of other family processes and decisions during childhood	p. 185
Family income	p. 186
Parental joblessness and financial difficulty	p. 188
Parental education	p. 189
Lone parenthood	p. 190
Conclusions	p. 192
Changes in Labor Market Participation and Family Income Distribution	p. 194
How do women's and men's work affect income distribution?	p. 194
Dual-earner and single-earner households	p. 197
Inequality in women's and men's earnings distribution	p. 200
Intra-household income distribution	p. 202
Conclusions	p. 204
Taxes, Transfers, Labor Supply and Household Welfare	p. 205
Motivations for studying labor supply and taxation	p. 205
Some evidence in Europe and the US	p. 207
Fiscal and social policies: modeling the behavioral responses	p. 209
Measuring social welfare: efficiency and equality	p. 212
Thinking about tax system reforms: an exercise for Italy	p. 213
Comparing three reform proposals	p. 215
Looking for the best	p. 225
The reforms and female participation and fertility	p. 227
Modeling household labor supply	p. 229
Appendix 11.B
Social welfare functions	p. 232
Equality of opportunity as a benchmark for evaluation of social policy	p. 234
What Policy Should Do	p. 237
Comments	p. 240
References	p. 249
Final Remarks	p. 265
Women in the labor market and in the Lisbon strategy	p. 265
A jobless and childless Europe?	p. 268
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