Results

Blog

LSE Business Review:

Education makes women, not men, more likely to have children

Given the wide-ranging consequences of declining fertility rates, academics and policymakers around the world are increasingly interested in understanding what influences men's and women's decision to start a family. Han...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Learning about women's competence: The dynamic response of political parties to gender quotas in South Korea

We study the dynamic responses of political parties to gender quotas in South Korean municipal councils, a setting with nearly zero women pre-quota. We exploit two unique institutional features: the quota intensity is di...Read more...

Blog

Vox EU:

Gendered change: 150 years of transformation in US hours

The 2023 Nobel Committee awarded the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel to Claudia Goldin. Among her many contributions is the emphasis on the non-monotonic trend in women's employment...Read more...

CentrePiece article

in brief... Why representation in economics matters

To inspire the next generation of black economists, how important is it for them to see people like themselves working in the profession? Felicia Odamtten, an economist at the Resolution Foundation and founder of The Bla...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Education, gender and family formation

We study the effect of educational attainment on family formation using regression discontinuity designs generated by centralized admissions processes to both secondary and tertiary education in Finland. Admission to fur...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Gender, careers and peers' gender mix

We use Italian Social Security data to study how the gender composition of a worker's professional network influences their career development. By exploiting variation within firms, occupations, and labor market entry co...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Property rights and innovation dynamism: The role of women inventors

How do stronger property rights for disadvantaged groups affect innovation? I investigate the impact of strengthened property rights for women on U.S. innovation by analyzing the Married Women's Property Acts, which gran...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Gendered change: 150 years of transformation in US hours

Women's contribution to the economy has been markedly underestimated in predominantly agricultural societies, due to their widespread involvement in unpaid agricultural work. Combining data from the US Census and several...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Teacher value-added and gender gaps in educational outcomes

This paper uses rich administrative data from Chile to estimate teacher value added (TVA) on test scores and on an educational attainment index. We allow each teacher to have a different TVA for male and female students ...Read more...

Blog

LSE EUROPP:

What explains the gender ideology gap?

Felipe Carozzi and Andres Gago present evidence from Spain that can provide a partial explanation for a growing ideological gap between young men and women across the world....Read more...

Blog

LSE British Politics and Policy:

The persisting pay gap and the motherhood penalty

Despite progress in gender equality, the pay gap continues to be a major challenge. Policymakers are yet to understand the nuances and intricate mechanics of why women's earnings take a hit after they become mothers, arg...Read more...

Journal article

Research Handbook on Inequalities and Work:

Women’s representation and the gender pay gap: rank, institutional research intensity and ethnicity in UK business schools

We employ a multi-faceted framework to explore the importance of women’s representation to the gender pay gap (GPG) in all UK business schools to analyse an authoritative and complete administrative sample from the Highe...Read more...

Blog

LSE Business Review:

Why representation matters in the economics profession

What prompts someone to become an economist? How important is representation in inspiring the next generation of black economists? And how positive should women economists be about the future? Felicia Odamtten, an econom...Read more...

Blog

LSE Business Review:

The 'child penalty' creates most of the gender earnings gaps in rich countries

After having children, women tend to change their working hours and wage rates, and even transition to new jobs. This phenomenon, known as the child penalty, explains the bulk of the gender earnings gap in developed coun...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Gender gaps from labour market downturns

How quickly do men and women find work after mass lay-offs due to workplace closures? Research by Ria Ivandic and Anne Sophie Lassen reveals that women face a greater risk of unemployment than men and lose a larger share...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Claudia Goldin: the economics of women and the labour market

The study of gender was far from mainstream in economics when Claudia Goldin began her research on women and work in the 1980s. Barbara Petrongolo discusses the impact of the 2023 economics Nobel laureate in shaping toda...Read more...

CEP Insights

Insights: condensed

The Insights series is an introduction to the work of the Centre for Economic Performance (CEP). Each Insight highlights the contribution of CEP researchers to both academic understanding and policymaking in one area of ...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Population Economics:

Teleworking and life satisfaction during COVID-19: the importance of family structure

We carry out a difference-in-differences analysis of a real-time survey conducted as part of the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) survey and show that teleworking had a negative average effect on life satisfaction over...Read more...

Blog

Notes from Poland:

Six myths about inequality in Poland

Pawel Bukowski discusses and debunks some of the common misconceptions regarding inequality in Poland....Read more...

Journal article

European Economic Review:

Remote talks: Changes to economics seminars during COVID-19

This paper analyzes the consequences of the change in the presentation mode of economics seminars triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic. The composition of seminar speakers changed significantly. The share of seminars held ...Read more...

Blog

LSE Business Review:

Why women say hybrid working enhances productivity, while men don't

There is a complex interplay between gender, remote work and productivity. Nikita, Anna Lane, Grace Lordan and Paul Middleton conducted a survey of more than 1000 employees in financial and professional services in the U...Read more...

Blog

LSE British Politics and Policy:

Why household income doesn't tell the full story on individual wellbeing

The literature on inequality often focuses on household income, but this measure has several limitations for assessing individual wellbeing. Tim Obermeier develops a new collective household model which simultaneously ac...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Income inequality in the 21st century Poland

This paper combines micro-level tax data, household surveys and national accounts data to provide consistent series of income distribution in Poland over the 2000-2018 period. We find that inequalities in Poland are one ...Read more...

Journal article

The Economic Journal:

Immigration, Female Labour Supply and Local Cultural Norms

We study the local evolution of female labour supply and cultural norms in West Germany in reaction to the sudden presence of East Germans who migrated to the West after reunification. These migrants grew up with high ra...Read more...

Journal article

British Journal of Industrial Relations: Forthcoming

Pay transparency intervention and the gender pay gap: Evidence from research-intensive universities in the UK

This study investigates the impact of a pay transparency intervention in reducing the gender pay gap in the UK university sector. Introduced in 2007, the initiative enabled public access to average annual earnings disagg...Read more...

Blog

LSE Business Review:

What Claudia Goldin taught economics about women, labour markets and pay gaps

When Claudia Goldin's research on women's work became influential in the 1980s, the study of gender was far from mainstream in economics. Four decades later, that is no longer the case, in large part thanks to her influe...Read more...

Blog

Vox EU:

Gender gaps from labour market shocks

Many workers will face unemployment at some point during their careers and research shows that job loss can lead to persistently lower earnings. But that research is chiefly about men. Ria Ivandic and Anne Sophie Lassen ...Read more...

Journal article

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Economics and Finance:

Explaining the Mathematics Gender Gap: The Role of Stereotypes

Descriptive stereotypes such as “girls are not good at mathematics” or prescriptive stereotypes, that is, fixed views about women’s societal roles, can explain the persistent gender gap in mathematics. Stereotypes lower ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Gender gaps from labor market shocks

Job loss leads to persistent adverse labor market outcomes, but assessments of gender differences in labor market recovery are lacking. We utilize plant closures in Denmark to estimate gender gaps in labor market outcome...Read more...

Blog

Economics Observatory:

What explains the gender division of labour and how can it be redressed?

Adam Smith's division of labour was about the efficiency gains from task specialisation in factories. But the gender division - gaps between men and women in pay, prestige, career progression and much more - can also be ...Read more...

Journal article

European Economic Review:

Adolescent development and the math gender gap

This paper investigates the determinants of the gap between girls and boys in mathematics performance (the 'math gap'). We are particularly interested in the role played by pubertal development in explaining the widening...Read more...

Blog

LSE Impact of Social Sciences:

New approaches to economics research are reshaping how we understand and respond to gender stereotypes

New ways of analysing data from images and text are being used by economists to study discrimination in the labour market. A recent workshop, hosted by the Centre for Economic Performance and the Department of Social Pol...Read more...

Blog

LSE EUROPP:

What girls study at school affects how healthy their babies will be later in life

Education plays a crucial role in shaping the future of individuals and societies. Pilar Cuevas-Ruiz, Cristina Borra and Almudena Sevilla present findings from research on the long-term health effects of a comprehensive ...Read more...

CentrePiece article

CEP Insights: Gender and...

CEP research on gender and factors such as family, work and Covid-19....Read more...

Journal article

Labour Economics:

Gender gaps from labor market shocks

Job loss leads to persistent adverse labor market outcomes, but assessments of gender differences in labor market recovery are lacking. We utilize plant closures in Denmark to estimate gender gaps in labor market outcome...Read more...

Blog

LSE EUROPP:

Female students perform better when taught by female lecturers - but class size is key

Stephan Maurer, Guido Schwerdt and Simon Wiederhold find a positive impact from female lecturers on female educational performance. But this effect exists when class sizes are small, suggesting that it is direct and freq...Read more...

Chapter

Families, labor markets, and policy

in Handbook of the Economics of the Family

Handbook of the Economics of the Family, Volume One includes comprehensive surveys of the current state of the economics literaure in the field, prepared by leading scholars, with a particular empahsis on the most recent...Read more...

Blog

LSE British Politics and Policy:

How women are changing the face of economics

Economics continues to be a discipline dominated by men. Yet trailblazing female economists are working to change that. Myung Jin explains why it is important to improve diversity and equality within the field....Read more...

Blog

LSE Business Review:

Women in the workplace: 50 years of change

Decades of progress have seen greater opportunities for women in the workplace, but sizeable gender gaps remain in most indicators of economic achievement. Stefania Albanesi, Claudia Olivetti, and Barbara Petrongolo revi...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Women in the workplace: 50 years of change

Decades of progress have seen greater opportunities for women in the workplace, but sizeable gender gaps remain in most indicators of economic achievement. Stefania Albanesi, Claudia Olivetti and Barbara Petrongolo revie...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization : Forthcoming

Who promotes gender-sensitive policies?

We study whether female-headed local governments in Spain are more likely to engage in gender sensitive policies such as long-term care support, pre-schooling, or work and family-life balancing services. Using a fuzzy re...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Do role models matter in large classes? New evidence on gender match effects in higher education

We study whether female students benefit from being taught by female professors, and whether such gender match effects differ by class size. We use administrative records of a German public university, covering all progr...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Gender stereotypes in the family

We study whether and why parents have gender-stereotyped beliefs when they assess their child's skills. Exploiting systematic differences in parental beliefs about a child's skills and blindly graded standardized test sc...Read more...

Journal article

Fiscal Studies:

The gendered division of paid and domestic work under lockdown

This paper provides novel empirical evidence on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the division of labour between parents of school-aged children in two-parent opposite-gender families. In line with existing evidenc...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Families, labor markets and policy

Using comparable data for 24 countries since the 1970s, we document gender convergence in schooling, employment and earnings, marriage delay and the accompanying decline in fertility, and the large remaining gaps in labo...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics: Forthcoming

Gender, loneliness and happiness during Covid-19

We analyse a measure of loneliness from a representative sample of German individuals interviewed in both 2017 and at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Both men and women felt lonelier during the COVID-19 p...Read more...

Journal article

Oxford Review of Education : Forthcoming

Inequalities in late adolescents' educational experiences and wellbeing during the Covid-19 pandemic

While the health risks of Covid-19 for young people are low, they have borne a heavy cost of the pandemic through intense disruption to their education and social lives. These effects have not been experienced equally ac...Read more...

Journal article

Economics of Education Review: Forthcoming

Gender gap variation across assessment types: explanations and implications

Using Swedish population data, we document that girls outperform boys by a third of a standard deviation in school grades, whereas a gap of similar magnitude but opposite sign persists in SAT scores in the sample of non-...Read more...

Journal article

Labour Economics:

The gender reveal: the effect of sons on young fathers' criminal behavior and labor market activities

Based on New Zealand's administrative court charges data, we document child gender-specific differences in future criminal behavior of young fathers. The deterrent impact of having a son on the future likelihood of recei...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Human Resources :

Workplace presenteeism, job substitutability and gender inequality

This paper explores how the parenthood wage penalty is partially explained by an increased within-couple gap in job uniqueness (i.e., the within-establishment substitutability of workers). Uniqueness is rewarded with hig...Read more...

Journal article

Economica:

Information provision and postgraduate studies

This is the first paper to examine experimentally effects of information provision on beliefs about pecuniary and non-pecuniary returns of postgraduate education, enrolment intentions and realized enrolment. We find that...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Human Capital: Forthcoming

Teachers and the gender gap in reading achievement

Boys persistently lag behind girls in English/language arts. We find that heterogeneity in teachers’ relative boy-specific value added could explain a large proportion of this gap. We exploit multifaceted measures of e...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Reducing gender gaps in mathematics education

Girls and young women underperform in mathematics relative to their male peers - a loss of talent that may hinder productivity growth. Almudena Sevilla and Pilar Cuevas-Ruiz explain how new developments in gender economi...Read more...

Journal article

Economica:

Men are from Mars, and women too: a Bayesian meta-analysis of overconfidence experiments

Gender differences in self-confidence could explain women's under-representation in high-income occupations and glass-ceiling effects. We draw lessons from the economic literature via a survey of experts and a Bayesian h...Read more...

Blog

LSE Covid-19:

What we learnt about the Covid economy

In spring 2020, many countries imposed radical, urgent actions including lockdowns to protect their citizens' health - but there was also a need to protect people from the worst of the ensuing economic storm. Academics a...Read more...

Journal article

Mothers in the Labor Market:

Temporal flexibility, breaks at work, and the motherhood wage gap

We analyze the relationship between temporal flexibility at work (i.e., the ability to vary or change the time of beginning or ending work) and the motherhood wage gap of working parents, in the US. To that end, we first...Read more...

Chapter

Temporal flexibility, breaks at work, and the motherhood wage gap

in Mothers in the labor market

We analyze the relationship between temporal flexibility at work (i.e., the ability to vary or change the time of beginning or ending work) and the motherhood wage gap of working parents, in the US. To that end, we first...Read more...

CVER Research Paper

Variation in Parenthood Wage Effect: A human capital approach

Using German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) microdata this paper contributes new empirical evidence by examining the implications of motherhood and fatherhood for wages of a sample of women and men between 2005-2015. Makin...Read more...

Blog

Economics Observatory:

How can we reduce gender gaps in mathematics education?

Underperformance by girls and young women in mathematics relative to their male peers is a loss of talent that may hinder productivity growth. Almudena Sevilla and Pilar Cuevas-Ruiz explore new developments in our unders...Read more...

CentrePiece article

What lottery wins reveal about the gender gap

The UK has seen a rapid increase in self-employed workers over the last two decades, but only one-third are women. Sarah Flèche and colleagues analyse data on lottery winners to show that improving women's access to capi...Read more...

Blog

VoxEU:

Inequalities in student to degree match

Researchers find students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are more likely to be undermatched to their degree courses both academically and in terms of earnings potential. Women are more likely than men to be underma...Read more...

Blog

LSE Business Review:

Economists discuss the impact of working from home on productivity, job satisfaction, and women's career progression

The pandemic has led to a big shift to working from home among people in occupations where it is possible for the jobs or some part of them to be done remotely. There has been much debate about the extent to which such f...Read more...

Journal article

Economica:

Does Rosie like riveting? Male and female occupational choices

Occupational segregation and pay gaps by gender remain large, while many of the constraints traditionally believed to be responsible for these gaps seem to have weakened over time. We explore the possibility that women a...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Men are from Mars, and women too: a Bayesian meta-analysis of overconfidence experiments

Gender differences in self-confidence could explain women's under representation in high-income occupations and glass-ceiling effects. We draw lessons from the economic literature via a survey of experts and a Bayesian h...Read more...

Journal article

The Journal of Human Resources: Forthcoming

STEM Graduates and Secondary School Curriculum: Does Early Exposure to Science Matter?

This paper explores the effect of strengthening the science curriculum in secondary school on STEM university education. By exploiting the staggered implementation of a reform that encouraged secondary schools in England...Read more...

CentrePiece article

In brief... UK gender pay gap reporting: a crude but effective policy

Forcing employers to reveal their gender pay gap has been effective in its main goal of narrowing the gap, according to research by Jack Blundell who finds the difference between women and men's pay has shrunk by just un...Read more...

Journal article

SERIEs: Forthcoming

Work and children in Spain: challenges and opportunities for equality between men and women

Over the past decades, Spain has seen a striking convergence between women’s and men’s participation in the labour market. However, this convergence has stalled since the early 2010s. We show that women still fare worse ...Read more...

CEP Insights

Gender in the workplace

The influx of women into the workplace during the 20th century has been one of the most remarkable changes in the world of work. But in general, women are less likely to be employed than men, they are less likely to hold...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization:

The importance of capital in closing the entrepreneurial gender gap: A longitudinal study of lottery wins

Would improving women's access to capital reduce the gender entrepreneurial gap? We study this issue by exploiting longitudinal data on lottery winners. Comparing between large to small winners, we find that an increase ...Read more...

CentrePiece article

The motherhood penalty for working women in Spain

Spain has seen a huge influx of women into the workplace in recent decades, but their experiences of work remain very different from those of men. As Claudia Hupkau and Jenifer Ruiz-Valenzuela explain, there is scope for...Read more...

Journal article

AEA Papers & Proceedings:

The Family Origin of the Math Gender Gap is a White Affluent Phenomenon

Previous research has shown that norms around the role of women in society could help explain the gender gap in mathematics and that these norms could be transmitted within the family. Using data from the Florida Departm...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The importance of capital in closing the entrepreneurial gender gap: a longitudinal study of lottery wins

Can capital constraints explain why there are more male than female entrepreneurs in most societies? We study this issue by exploiting longitudinal data on lottery winners. Comparing between large to small winners, we fi...Read more...

Blog

Economics Observatory:

Update: How is coronavirus affecting the self-employed?

A year into the Covid-19 crisis, it is widely recognised that the UK's self-employed workers have been among the hardest hit. Survey evidence shows that the latest lockdown is once again leaving the self-employed with lo...Read more...

Blog

LSE Business Review:

UK gender pay gap reporting: a crude but effective policy?

Forcing employers to reveal their gender pay gap has been effective in its main goal of narrowing the gap. The difference between women's and men's pay has shrunk by just under a fifth at affected employers. Jack Blundel...Read more...

Blog

LSE Business Review:

Work and children: is the motherhood penalty in Spain too high for working women?

Spain has seen a huge influx of women into the workplace, but men and women's experiences of work remain very different. Claudia Hupkau and Jenifer Ruiz-Valenzuela say there is scope for new family-friendly policies to h...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Wage responses to gender pay gap reporting requirements

In this paper I study a policy in which employers are required to publicly report gender pay gap statistics. Proponents argue that increasing the information available to workers and consumers places pressure on firms to...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization:

Job quality and workplace gender diversity in Europe

We here consider the relationship between workplace gender measures and employees’ perceived job quality, where the former cover both the gender mix of workers with the same job title and the gender of the immediate boss...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization:

Born in the family: Preferences for boys and the gender gap in math

We study the effect of preferences for boys on the performance in mathematics of girls, using evidence from two different data sources. In our first set of results, we identify families with a preference for boys by usin...Read more...

Journal article

Business History:

The Population of Non-corporate Business Proprietors in England and Wales 1891–1911

This article uses population censuses to provide the first consistent counts of the population of business proprietors for 1891–1911. After appropriate adjustments for imperfect Census design the article confirms the per...Read more...

Journal article

Fiscal Studies:

Work, Care and Gender during the COVID-19 Crisis

We explore the effects of the COVID-19 crisis and the associated restrictions to economic activity on paid and unpaid work for men and women in the United Kingdom. Using data from the COVID-19 supplement of Understanding...Read more...

Blog

VoxEU:

Work, care, and gender across UK lockdowns

A growing body of research is making clear the unequal impact of the COVID-19 pandemic across gender. This column explores what the likely implications of a second lockdown in the UK are for gender equality at work and i...Read more...

Blog

LSE British Politics and Policy:

How lockdowns have reversed traditional gender roles in some UK households and further entrenched them in others

Claudia Hupkau and Barbara Petrongolo discuss what the likely implications of a second lockdown are for gender equality at work and in the home....Read more...

CVER Research Paper

Gender, achievement, and subject choice in English education

In common with other OECD countries, there is a gender gap in educational achievement in England favouring girls. This carries through to tertiary education. On the other hand, boys are far more likely to engage in STEM ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Work, care and gender during the Covid-19 crisis

We explore impacts of the pandemic crisis and associated restrictions to economic activity on paid and unpaid work for men and women in the UK. Using data from the Covid-19 supplement of Understanding Society, we find ev...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Gender differences in tertiary education: what explains STEM participation?

The share of women achieving tertiary education has increased rapidly over time and now exceeds that of men in most OECD countries. However, women are severely under-represented in maths-intensive science fields, which a...Read more...

Journal article

Labour Economics:

Gender norms, fairness and relative working hours within households

Using data in the United States, UK and Germany, we show that women whose working hours exceed those of their male partners report lower life satisfaction on average. By contrast, men do not report lower life satisfactio...Read more...

Journal article

Economics of Education Review:

Boys lag behind: How teachers’ gender biases affect student achievement

I use a combination of blind and non-blind test scores to show that middle school teachers favor girls in their evaluations. This favoritism, estimated as individual teacher effects, has long-term consequences: as measur...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Covid-19 and the work patterns of men and women

Claudia Hupkau and Barbara Petrongolo explore the impact of the pandemic on women's labour market prospects and ‘home production' responsibilities...Read more...

Journal article

Labour Economics:

Gender gaps and the structure of local labor markets

In this paper we discuss some strands of the recent literature on the evolution of gender gaps and their driving forces. We will revisit key stylized facts about gender gaps in employment and wages in a few high-income c...Read more...

CEP Covid-19 analysis

Work, care and gender during the Covid-19 crisis

The Covid-19 crisis has especially hit service sectors with frequent social interactions, in which women are over-represented. At the same time, if not directly subject to the lock-down, women are more likely to hold job...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

A survey of gender gaps through the lens of the industry structure and local labor markets

In this paper we discuss some strands of the recent literature on the evolution of gender gaps and their driving forces. We will revisit key stylized facts about gender gaps in employment and wages in a few high-income c...Read more...

Blog

VoxEU:

Covid-19 and gender gaps: Latest evidence and lessons from the UK

The social distancing and lockdowns associated with the COVID-19 crisis has hit service sectors with frequent interactions between consumers and providers which cannot be done from home. At the same time, it has added ed...Read more...

Blog

LSE British Politics and Policy:

Covid-19 and wages: prepare for large cuts if you are younger and work in a small firm

Brian Bell, Nick Bloom, Jack Blundell, and Luigi Pistaferri estimate how the ongoing pandemic may impact earnings by age group, gender, and firm size. The data suggests that young men working in small firms could see ear...Read more...

Blog

VoxEU:

Prepare for large wage cuts if you are younger and work in a small firm

The COVID-19 pandemic is turning into a global recession - probably the biggest drop in economic activity since the Great Depression of the 1930s. This column uses over 3 million earnings observations drawn from more tha...Read more...

Journal article

Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics:

Do apprenticeships pay? Evidence for England

The importance of apprenticeships for early labour market transitions varies across countries and over time. In recent times, there has been a policy drive to increase the number of people undertaking apprenticeships in ...Read more...

CVER Research Paper

Gender and Socio-Economic Differences in STEM Uptake and Attainment

The underrepresentation of women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) occupations is a world-wide phenomenon and a concern for policy makers. This is the case in the UK where a shortage of STEM skills is ...Read more...

Blog

LSE News:

Artificial intelligence could help protect victims of domestic violence

Ria Ivandic finds in the United States, roughly one in four women experience serious intimate partner violence over their lifetimes...Read more...

Journal article

Oxford Review of Economic Policy:

Gender diversity in firms

This paper explores the recent efforts by the corporate world and public policy to increase the number of women in leadership positions in the workplace. We review and empirically evaluate the ‘business case’ for gender ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The motivational cost of inequality: pay gaps reduce the willingness to pursue rewards

Factors beyond a person?s control, such as demographic characteristics at birth, often influence the availability of rewards an individual can expect for their efforts. We know surprisingly little how such pay-gaps due t...Read more...

Journal article

Social History:

Female entrepreneurship: business, marriage and motherhood in England and Wales, 1851–1911

This article offers a new perspective on what it meant to be a business proprietor in Victorian Britain. Based on individual census records, it provides an overview of the full population of female business proprietors i...Read more...

Blog

LSE Business Review:

Can economic incentives promote a more equal gender division of house chores?

Gender identity norms such as the male bread-winner model are possible drivers of persistent gender inequalities in the labour market. However, the extent to which they restrict the behaviour of couples is debated. While...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Technology gaps, trade and income

This paper studies the origins and consequences of international technology gaps. I develop an endogenous growth model where R&D efficiency varies across countries and productivity differences emerge from firm-level tech...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Economic incentives, home production and gender identity norms

We infer the role of gender identity norms from the reallocation of childcare across parents, following changes in their relative wages. By exploiting variation from a Swedish tax reform, we estimate the elasticity of su...Read more...

Journal article

The Quarterly Journal of Economics:

Protests as strategic games: Experimental evidence from Hong Kong's antiauthoritarian movement

Social scientists have long viewed the decision to protest as strategic, with an individual's participation a function of their beliefs about others' turnout. We conduct a framed field experiment that recalibrates indivi...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Economic consequences of family policies

There is no compelling evidence that extended parental leave rights have a positive impact on female employment, according to research by Claudia Olivetti and Barbara Petrongolo, which analyses the labour market effects ...Read more...

Journal article

AEA Papers and Proceedings:

Gender Norms and Relative Working Hours: Why Do Women Suffer More Than Men from Working Longer Hours Than Their Partners?

Constraints that prevent women from working longer hours are argued to be important drivers of the gender wage gap in the United States. We provide evidence that in couples where the wife's working hours exceed the husba...Read more...

Journal article

Scandinavian Journal of Economics:

Gender and Promotions: Evidence from Academic Economists in France

Differences in promotion across genders are still prevalent in many occupations. Recent work based on experimental evidence indicates that women participate less in or exert lower effort during contests. We exploit the u...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of International Economics:

Working across time zones: Exporters and the gender wage gap

This study argues that there is a systematic difference in the gender wage gap (GWG) between exporting firms and non-exporters. Exporters may require greater commitment from their employees, such as working particular ho...Read more...

Journal article

Regional Science and Urban Economics:

You've come a long way, baby. Husbands' commuting time and family labour supply

This paper explores the effects of husbands’ commuting time on wives’ employment and family time allocation. We develop a unitary family model, and we show that when market services are imperfect substitutes of home prod...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Economic Perspectives:

The economic consequences of family policies: lessons from a century of legislation in high-income countries

By the early 21st century, most high-income countries have put into effect a host of generous and virtually gender-neutral parental leave policies and family benefits, with the multiple goals of gender equity, higher fer...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Gender and promotions: evidence from academic economists in France

The promotion system for French academic economists provides an interesting environment to examine the promotion gap between men and women. Promotions occur through national competitions for which we have information bot...Read more...

Journal article

Labour Economics:

Top earnings inequality and the gender pay gap: Canada, Sweden, and the United Kingdom

This paper explores the consequences of the under-representation of women in top jobs for the overall gender pay gap. Using administrative annual earnings data from Canada, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, it applies the ...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Political Economy:

Gender gaps in performance: Evidence from young lawyers

This paper documents the gender gap in performance among highskilled professionals in the United States. On the basis of widely used performance measures in law firms, we find that male lawyers bill 10 percent more hours...Read more...

Journal article

American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics:

Gender gaps and the rise of the service economy

This paper investigates the role of the rise in services in the narrowing of gender gaps in hours and wages in recent decades. We highlight the between-industry component of differential gender trends for the United Stat...Read more...

CentrePiece article

In brief... How the rise of the service economy narrowed the gender gap

The historical growth in the service sector since the Second World War has created jobs for which women have a comparative advantage, according to analysis by Rachel Ngai and Barbara Petrongolo. Their research shows how ...Read more...

Journal article

Economica:

Gender Inequality and Economic Development: Fertility, Education and Norms

We document the evolution of gender inequality in labour market outcomes—earnings, labour supply and wage rates—over the path of economic development, and present evidence on the potential reasons for this evolution. To ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The economic consequences of family policies: lessons from a century of legislation in high-income countries

We draw lessons from existing work and our own analysis on the effects of parental leave and other interventions aimed at aiding families. The outcomes of interest are female employment, gender gaps in earnings and ferti...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of the European Economic Association:

Gender differences in response to big stakes

It is commonly perceived that increasing incentives improves performance. However, the reaction to increased incentives might differ between men and women, leading to gender differences in performance. In a natural exper...Read more...

Journal article

The Economic Journal:

Unemployment and Domestic Violence: Theory and Evidence

Does rising unemployment really increase domestic violence as many commentators expect? The contribution of this article is to examine how changes in unemployment affect the incidence of domestic abuse. Theory predicts t...Read more...

Journal article

Annual Review of Economics:

The evolution of gender gaps in industrialized countries

Women in developed economies have made major advancements in labor markets throughout the past century, but remaining gender differences in pay and employment seem remarkably persistent. This article documents long-run t...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Does Rosie like riveting? Male and female occupational choices

Occupational segregation and pay gaps by gender remain large while many of the constraints traditionally believed to be responsible for these gaps have weakened over time. Here, we explore the possibility that women and ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The evolution of gender gaps in industrialized countries

Women in developed economies have made major inroads in labor markets throughout the past century, but remaining gender differences in pay and employment seem remarkably persistent. This paper documents long-run trends i...Read more...

CentrePiece article

In brief... Under pressure: gender differences in responding to exam stakes

Do girls and boys respond differently to exam pressure, perhaps depending on the subject and whether or not the tests are 'high stakes'? Ghazala Azmat and colleagues consider evidence for secondary school age children ...Read more...

CentrePiece article

In brief... Oil: the impact on women's work

Stephan Maurer and Andrei Potlogea explore whether oil-dominated economies are naturally biased against women's labour market participation....Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Globalization: a woman's best friend? Exporters and the gender wage gap

While the impact of globalization on income inequality has received a lot of attention, little is known about its effect on the gender wage gap (GWG). This study argues that there is a systematic difference in the GWG be...Read more...

CEP election analysis

#ElectionEconomics: The Research Evidence on Key Issues for Voters in the 2015 UK General Election

Please see the CEP #ElectionEconomics report(Paper 1)and the Executive Summary (Paper 2) that cover all the election 2015 briefings, discussing the research evidence on 15 of the UK's key policy battlegrounds: immigratio...Read more...

CEP election analysis

Gender Gaps in the UK Labour Market: jobs, pay and family-friendly policies

Differences in the labour market experiences of men and women have fallen over the last 20 years, but there are still sizeable ‘gender gaps’ in employment and wages. Certain factors help to explain a good part of gender ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Giving a little help to girls? Evidence on grade discrimination and its effect on students' achievement

This paper tests if gender-discrimination in grading affects pupils' achievements and course choices. I use a unique dataset containing grades given by teachers, scores obtained anonymously by pupils at different ages, a...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Gender differences in response to big stakes

It is commonly perceived that increasing incentives improves performance. However, the reaction to increased incentives might differ between men and women, leading to gender differences in performance. In a natural exper...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Do women earn less even as social entrepreneurs?

Based upon unique survey data collected using respondent driven sampling methods, we investigate whether there is a gender pay gap among social entrepreneurs in the UK. We find that women as social entrepreneurs earn 29%...Read more...

Journal article

Labour Economics:

Gender and the labor market: What have we learned from field and lab experiments?

We discuss the contribution of the experimental literature to the understanding of both traditional and previously unexplored dimensions of gender differences and discuss their bearings on labor market outcomes. Experime...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The Latin American efficiency gap

The average Latin American country produces about 1 fifth of the output per worker of the US. What are the sources of these enormous income gaps? I report development-accounting results for Latin America. On average Lati...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Fueling the gender gap? Oil and women's labor and marriage market outcomes

This paper analyzes the effect of resource-based economic specialization on women's labor market outcomes. Using information on the location and discovery of major oil fields in the Southern United States coupled with a ...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Gender and the labour market: evidence from experiments

Lab experiments are an increasingly valuable tool for understanding differences in how men and women are treated in the labour market. Dr Ghazala Azmat and Professor Barbara Petrongolo explore what has been learned about...Read more...

CEP occasional paper

Gender and the labor market: What have we learned from field and lab experiments?

We discuss the contribution of the experimental literature to the understanding of both traditional and previously unexplored dimensions of gender differences and discuss their bearings on labor market outcomes. Experime...Read more...

SERC/Urban and Spatial Programme Discussion Paper

Gender and Competition: Evidence from Academic Promotions in France

Differences in promotion across genders are still prevalent in many occupations. Recent work based on experimental evidence indicates that women participate less in or exert lower effort during contests. We exploit the u...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Explaining cross-racial differences in the educational gender gap

The sizable gender gap in college enrolment, especially among African Americans, constitutes a puzzling empirical regularity that may have serious consequences on marriage markets, male labor force participation and the ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Gender Gaps and the Rise of the Service Economy

This paper explains the narrowing of gender gaps in wages and market hours in recent decades by the growth of the service economy. We propose a model with three sectors: goods, services and home production. Women have a ...Read more...

SERC/Urban and Spatial Programme Discussion Paper

Top Team Demographics, Innovation and Business Performance: Findings from English Firms and Cities 2008-9

High levels of net migration to the UK have contributed to growing cultural diversity, and researchers are turning their attention to the long-term effects of diversity on productivity. Yet little is known about these is...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Science: why the gender gap?

Stereotypes, role models played by teachers and social norms influence girls’ academic self-concept and push girls to choose humanities rather than science. Do recruiters reinforce this strong selection by discriminating...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Sexism at work

Women have, on average, been less well-paid than men throughout history. Prior to 1900, most economic historians see the gender wage gap as a reflection of men’s greater strength and correspondingly higher productivity. ...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Gender gaps in performance

Ghazala Azmat and Rosa Ferrer analyse data on young lawyers to understand what drives differences in earnings between highly skilled men and women....Read more...

CEE/Education and skills discussion paper

Do Professors Really Perpetuate the Gender Gap in Science? Evidence from a Natural Experiment in a French Higher Education Institution

Stereotypes, role models played by teachers and social norms influence girls’ academic self-concept and push girls to choose humanities rather than science. Do recruiters reinforce this strong selection by discriminating...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Gender Gaps in Performance: Evidence from Young Lawyers

This paper documents and studies the gender gap in performance among associate lawyers in the United States. Unlike other high-skilled professions, the legal profession assesses performance using transparent measures tha...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Gender Gaps Across Countries and Skills: Supply, Demand and the Industry Structure

The gender wage gap varies widely across countries and across skill groups within countries. Interestingly, there is a positive cross-country correlation between the unskilled- to-skilled gender wage gap and the correspo...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Gender, Productivity and the Nature of Work and Pay: Evidence from the Late Nineteenth-Century Tobacco Industry

Women have, on average, been less well-paid than men throughout history. Prior to 1900, most economic historians see the gender wage gap as a reflection of men’s greater strength and correspondingly higher productivity. ...Read more...

CEE/Education and skills discussion paper

Assessed by a Teacher Like Me: Race, Gender and Subjective Evaluations

The underrepresentation of minority teachers and male teachers remains an issue in US elementary education, and there is evidence that racial interactions partly shape student performance. However there is little work on...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Understanding the Gender Pay Gap: What's Competition Got to Do with It?

A number of papers have recently argued that men and women have different attitudes and behavioural responses to competition. Laboratory experiments suggest that these gender differences are very large but it is importan...Read more...

CEE/Education and skills discussion paper

Education, Occupation and Career Expectations: Determinants of the Gender Pay Gap for UK Graduates

A large proportion of the gender wage gap is usually left unexplained. In this paper, we investigate whether the unexplained component is due to misspecification. Using a sample of recent UK graduates, we introduce varia...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The Early Career Gender Wage Gap

In Finland the gender wage gap increases significantly during the first 10 years after labor market entry accounting most of the life-time increase in the gender wage gap. This paper focuses on the early career gender wa...Read more...

CEE/Education and skills discussion paper

Gender and Student Achievement in English Schools

The widening gap between the average educational achievement of boys and girls has been the subject of much discussion. This gap is especially controversial for students taking national exams at the end of their compulso...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Unequal Pay or Unequal employment? A Cross-Country Analysis of Gender Gaps

There is evidence of a negative cross-country correlation between gender wage and employment gaps. We argue that non-random selection of women into work explains an important part of such correlation and thus of the obse...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The Gender Gap in Early Career Wage Growth

In the UK the gender pay gap on entry to the labour market is approximately zero but after ten years after labour market entry, there is a gender wage gap of almost 25 log points. This paper explores the reason for this ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Is Poland the Next Spain?

We revisit Western Europe’s record with labor-productivity convergence, and tentatively extrapolate its implications for the future path of Eastern Europe. The poorer Western European countries caught up with the richer ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Gender Segregation in Employment Contracts

This paper presents evidence on gender segregation in employment contracts in 15 EU countries, using micro data from the ECHPS. Women are over-represented in part-time jobs in all countries considered, but while in north...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Gender Gaps in Unemployment Rates in OECD Countries

There is an enormous literature on gender gaps in pay and labour market participation but virtually no literature on gender gaps in unemployment rates. Although there are some countries in which there is essentially no g...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Gender, Motivation, Experience and Wages

Using data from the British Household Panel Survey, 1991-97 this paper investigates the structure of the female wage equation and the gender wage differential. The discriminatory portion of the gender wage differential i...Read more...