Zitatform

Foster, Gigi & Leslie S. Stratton (2018): Does female breadwinning make partnerships less healthy or less stable? (GLO discussion paper / Global Labor Organization 259), Maastricht, 13 S.

Abstract

"This paper addresses the directions to follow when designing new educational systems and school-lo-work transition regimes to adhere to the needs of Industry 4. 0. Although a high level of general education will be important for its training content to develop adaptability, it is not the only component to develop. What will be more and more important are work related skills, both the general ones and the ones which are job-specific and need, therefore, on-the-job training to develop. This will require important educational reforms to favour an ever-better integration between educational institution and the world of work. Young people and their families alone will not be able to adapt on their own to the new human capital requirements of industry 4.0 productions. A new framework for an integrated action by governments, firms, educational institutions and families is needed to smooth the school-to-work in the future. The duality principle is the basis for a strong diversification of the supply of education." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

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Gärtner, Debora & Lena Reinschmidt (2018): Abkehr vom Zuverdiener-Modell - aber wohin? Gleichstellungspolitische Zielsetzungen und Anforderungen an Vereinbarkeitspolitik. Europäisches Fachgespräch am 1./2. Oktober 2018 in Berlin. Frankfurt am Main, 77 S.

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Halla, Martin, Julia Schmieder & Andrea Weber (2018): Job displacement, family dynamics and spousal labor supply. (IZA discussion paper 11752), Bonn, 76 S.

Abstract

"We study interdependencies in spousal labor supply and the effectiveness of intrahousehold insurance in a sample of married couples, where the husband loses his job due to a mass layoff or plant closure using data from the Austrian Social Security Database. We show that in our sample of relatively young couples the shock hits households at crucial stages of family formation, which requires careful modeling of the wives' counterfactual lifecycle labor market patterns. In our empirical analysis, we propose three independent control groups of unaffected households to identify the causal effects of husbands' displacement on wives' labor supply. Our empirical results show that husbands suffer large and persistent employment and earnings losses over the first 5 years after displacement. But wives' labor supply increases only moderately and they respond predominantly at the extensive margin. The implied participation elasticity with respect to the husband's earnings shock is very small, about -0:04. While the wives' earnings gains recover only a tiny fraction of the household income loss, public transfers and taxes are a more important insurance at least in the short run. In terms of non-labor market related outcomes, we find a small positive effect on the probability of divorce, but no effect of the husband's job displacement on fertility. The presence and ages of children in the household are crucial determinants of the wife's labor supply response. The most responsive group are mothers, who are planning to return to the labor market after a maternity break, while mothers of very young children or wives without children remain unresponsive. We thus conclude that Austria's strong gender identity norms are an explanation for the limited scope of intra-household insurance." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

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Hu, Yang & Deniz Yucel (2018): What Fairness? Gendered Division of Housework and Family Life Satisfaction across 30 Countries. In: European Sociological Review, Jg. 34, H. 1, S. 92-105. DOI:10.1093/esr/jcx085

Abstract

"This article sheds new light on the role played by perceived fairness in configuring the relationship between gendered housework division and women's family life satisfaction across 30 countries. This is achieved by distinguishing and comparing two major dimensions of women's fairness comparison -- inter-gender relational comparison between partners and intra-gender referential comparison with other women from the same society. Analysing data from the 2012 International Social Survey Programme, we find that women's family life satisfaction is adversely affected by both a lack of relational fairness and unfavourable referential comparison, which operate independently of each other. Supporting the 'self-serving' theory, women are found to rely more on one dimension of fairness comparison to assess their family life satisfaction when they compare unfavourably rather than favourably in the other dimension. Country-level gender equality positively predicts the strength of the association between relational fairness and family life satisfaction. However, it does not seem to moderate the influence of referential comparison on family life satisfaction. In light of these results, scholars are urged to consider the perceived fairness of housework division as a plural construct, and to promulgate gender equality in multiple dimensions -- addressing not just inter-gender (in)equity but also intra-gender (in)equality -- to move the gender revolution forward." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

Zitatform

Keldenich, Carina & Andreas Knabe (2018): Women's labor market responses to their partners' unemployment and low-pay employment. (CESifo working paper 7377), München, 30 S.

Abstract

"This paper revisits the added worker effect. Using bivariate random-effects probit estimation on data from the German Socio-Economic Panel we show that women respond to their partners' unemployment with an increase in labor market participation, which also leads to an increase in their employment probability. Our analysis considers within- and between-effects separately, revealing differences in the relationships between women's labor market statuses and their partners' unemployment in the previous period (within-effect) and their partners' overall probability of being unemployed (between-effect). Furthermore, we demonstrate that partners' employment in low-paid jobs has an effect on women's labor market choices and outcomes similar to that of his unemployment." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

Zitatform

Keller, Wolfgang & Hâle Utar (2018): Globalization, gender, and the family. (NBER working paper 25247), Cambrige, Mass., 96 S. DOI:10.3386/w25247

Abstract

"This paper shows that globalization has far-reaching implications for the economy's fertility rate and family structure because they influence work-life balance. Employing population register data on new births, marriages, and divorces together with employer-employee linked data for Denmark, we show that lower labor market opportunities due to Chinese import competition lead to a shift towards family, with more parental leave taking and higher fertility as well as more marriages and fewer divorces. This pro-family, pro-child shift is driven largely by women, not men. Correspondingly, the negative earnings implications of the rising import competition are concentrated on women, and gender earnings inequality increases. We show that the choice of market versus family is a major determinant of worker adjustment costs to labor market shocks. While older workers respond to the shock rather similarly whether female or not, for young workers the fertility response takes away the adjustment advantage they typically have - if the worker is a woman. We find that the female biological clock - women have difficulties to conceive beyond their early forties - is central for the gender differential, rather than the composition of jobs and workplaces, as well as other potential causes." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

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Kolpashnikova, Kamila (2018): American househusbands: New time use evidence of gender display, 2003-2016. In: Social indicators research, Jg. 140, H. 3, S. 1259-1277. DOI:10.1007/s11205-017-1813-z

Abstract

"The traditional gendered division of household labor, where women did the bulk of all domestic labor, is eroding. The literature on housework, however, does not discuss the ways how to test for the non-traditional gender performances. Using the American Time Use Survey (2003-2016), the present study fills in this research gap and re-tests the relationship between relative earnings and the performance of housework. The analysis of women's time spent on domestic work shows that the traditional gender display explanation still applies to women's participation in routine tasks such as cooking and cleaning. Thus, breadwinning wives display gender neutralizing behavior and 'do' gender. On the other hand, American men show non-normative gender behavior in cooking and cleaning, but not in maintenance, where they still 'do' gender. This paper unveils a persistent traditional gender performance of women in housework and a new pattern for men's involvement in indoor routine housework." (Author's abstract, © Springer-Verlag) ((en))

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Lubotsky, Darren & Javaeria A. Qureshi (2018): Assessing the smooth rise in mothers' employment as children age. In: Journal of Human Capital, Jg. 12, H. 4, S. 604-639. DOI:10.1086/700077

Abstract

"We study the trajectory of maternal employment as children age and assess the factors underlying the smooth increase in mothers' employment as their youngest child ages. Our results indicate that the rising employment profile is largely not associated with falling child care costs, changes in nonlabor income, or marital dissolution as children age. Differences in educational attainment and wage opportunities are related to some of the increase in employment when children are under 4 years old but do not explain any after that age. We discuss explanations for the rising pattern of mothers' employment that might be consistent with our results." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

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Maestas, Nicole (2018): The return to work and women's employment decisions. (NBER working paper 24429), Cambrige, Mass., 40 S. DOI:10.3386/w24429

Abstract

"It is well documented that individuals in couples tend to retire around the same time. But because women tend to marry older men, this means many married women retire at younger ages than their husbands. This fact is somewhat at odds with lifecycle theory that suggests women might otherwise retire at later ages than men because they have longer life expectancies, and often have had shorter careers on account of childrearing. As a result, the opportunity cost of retirement - in terms of foregone potential earnings and accruals to Social Security wealth - may be larger for married women than for their husbands. Using the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), I find evidence that the returns to additional work beyond mid-life are greater for married women than for married men. The potential gain in Social Security wealth alone is enough to place married women on nearly equal footing with married men in terms of Social Security wealth at age 70." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

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Meliou, Elina & Tim Edwards (2018): Relational practices and reflexivity: Exploring the responses of women entrepreneurs to changing household dynamics. In: International Small Business Journal, Jg. 36, H. 2, S. 149-168. DOI:10.1177/0266242617724858

Abstract

"This qualitative study explores how and why women, positioned as mothers, wives, or carers, navigate changing household dynamics, related to care and reproductive resources, and become entrepreneurial. Drawing on relational reflexivity, we show how women's embodied, intimate relations with important others in the household form the focal point for entrepreneurial activities and offer evidence of their entrepreneurial agency. Our analysis reveals the emergence of three relational practices that result in a new venture as the entrepreneurial response of women. We critically evaluate normative analyses on gender, entrepreneurship, and household." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

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Müller, Kai-Uwe, Michael Neumann & Katharina Wrohlich (2018): Labor supply under participation and hours constraints. (DIW-Diskussionspapiere 1758), Berlin, 50 S.

Abstract

"The paper extends a static discrete-choice labor supply model by adding participation and hours constraints. We identify restrictions by survey information on the eligibility and search activities of individuals as well as actual and desired hours. This provides for a more robust identification of preferences and constraints. Both, preferences and restrictions are allowed to vary by and are related through observed and unobserved characteristics. We distinguish various restrictions mechanisms: labor demand rationing, working hours norms varying across occupations, and insufficient public childcare on the supply side of the market. The effect of these mechanisms is simulated by relaxing different constraints at a time. We apply the empirical framework to evaluate an in-work benefit for low-paid parents in the German institutional context. The benefit is supposed to increase work incentives for secondary earners. Based on the structural model we are able to disentangle behavioral reactions into the pure incentive effect and the limiting impact of constraints at the intensive and extensive margin. We find that the in-work benefit for parents substantially increases working hours of mothers of young children, especially when they have a low education. Simulating the effects of restrictions shows their substantial impact on employment of mothers with young children." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

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Nitsche, Natalie & Daniel Grunow (2018): Do economic resources play a role in bargaining child care in couples? Parental investment in cases of matching and mismatching gender ideologies in Germany. In: European Societies, Jg. 20, H. 5, S. 785-815. DOI:10.1080/14616696.2018.1473626

Abstract

"This paper examines the factors associated with a gendered division of childcare among parents in Germany. While much is known on the gender division of housework in families and the economic and sociological factors that may be driving it, we still know relatively little about whether and how these factors may affect the division of unpaid childcare in families. We first assess the relevance of partner's combined gender ideologies and relative resources on the division of unpaid childcare. Second, we assess whether the effect of economic resources may be contingent on the partners' agreement or disagreement on gender ideologies concerning maternal employment. We address these questions using data from the German Panel Analysis of Intimate Relationships and Family Dynamics (pairfam) and MLM Growth Curve Models. Our findings consistently show a significant positive effect of partners' combined gender ideologies and her share of income on his share of childcare. These effects are strongest, and robust, among couples with matching ideologies supporting maternal employment, which we term 'egalitarian island' couples. Economically efficient divisions of childcare thus appear dependent upon the couples' ideological pairing and on mothers' ideologies towards maternal employment." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

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Qian, Yue (2018): Educational Assortative Mating and Income Dynamics in Couples. A Longitudinal Dyadic Perspective. In: Journal of Marriage and Family, Jg. 80, H. 3, S. 607-621. DOI:10.1111/jomf.12470

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Roth, Anja & Michaela Slotwinski (2018): Gender norms and income misreporting within households. (CESifo working paper 7298), München, 30 S.

Abstract

"We revisit the prominent finding that women's incomes are disproportionally often observed just below the income of their partner. So far, this bunching has been explained by couple formation or couples' labor market decisions. We propose an additional mechanism: income misreporting in surveys. Drawing on survey and administrative data, we show that income misreporting accounts for the discontinuity in the distribution of women's relative incomes just below the point where a woman outearns her partner. This misreporting is best explained by the role of gender norms in individuals' self-portrayals and self-perception." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

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Schmidt, Eva-Maria (2018): Breadwinning as care? The meaning of paid work in mothers' and fathers' constructions of parenting. In: Community, work & family, Jg. 21, H. 4, S. 445-462. DOI:10.1080/13668803.2017.1318112

Abstract

"As some scholars have argued for a distinct conceptualisation of breadwinning and for understanding breadwinning as a form of care, this study addresses parents' constructions of breadwinning and its connections to care. It is based on an in-depth interpretive analysis of multiple-perspective, qualitative longitudinal interviews with 22 Austrian mothers and fathers from three points in time during their transition to parenthood. The analysis revealed four different types of breadwinning concepts by considering the jointly constructed meaning of mothers' and fathers' paid work within a parental couple and further relied on Tronto's [(1993). Moral boundaries. A political argument for an ethic of care. New York, NY: Routledge] conceptualisation of care as a four-step process. The results indicate that respondents construct a clear difference between earning money and breadwinning. Additionally, a difference is made between breadwinning and taking care of the family's subsistence, predominantly so for mothers. In conclusion, breadwinning can definitely be considered a form of care and thus a form of involvement in parenting, but it cannot be regarded a form of involvement in caregiving. The holistic picture of parents' joint constructions enabled us to contribute to the existing conceptualisations of breadwinning and of parental involvement, thus providing a novel perspective on matters of gender equality." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

Zitatform

Steiber, Nadia & Barbara Haas (2018): Too much or too little work? Couples' actual and preferred employment patterns and work hours mismatches in Europe. In: Zeitschrift für Familienforschung, Jg. 30, H. 3, S. 269-292. DOI:10.3224/zff.v30i3.03

Abstract

"Die letzte große Erhebung und Analyse von Umfragedaten zu den Arbeitszeitpräferenzen von Paaren in Europa wurde in den 1990er Jahren durchgeführt. Der Tenor dieser Analysen war, dass sich die oft 'überarbeiteten' Zweiverdiener-Paare in vielen Fällen eine Reduktion ihrer Arbeitszeit wünschen, vor allem bei Vorliegen von Kinderbetreuungspflichten. Die vorliegende Studie nützt jüngere Daten aus dem European Social Survey (2010-12). Der Fokus der Analyse liegt auf Unterschieden zwischen demographischen Gruppen und Ländern im Ausmaß zu dem Paare mehr oder weniger Stunden erwerbstätig sind als dies ihren Präferenzen entspricht (Über- bzw. Unterbeschäftigung). Die Analysen zeigen, dass rund ein Drittel der Paare unterbeschäftigt ist (Präferenz für Arbeitszeitaufstockung), während nur rund eines von zehn Paaren angibt, überbeschäftigt zu sein (Präferenz für Arbeitszeitreduktion). Als Risikofaktoren für Unterbeschäftigung werden niedrige Bildung und Kinder im Vorschulalter sowie auf der Länderebene hohe Arbeitslosigkeit (Griechenland, Irland, Slowenien, Spanien) identifiziert. Höher gebildete Frauen bzw. Paare mit älteren Kindern sind dagegen mit einer höheren Wahrscheinlichkeit überbeschäftigt. Der Effekt von kleinen Kindern auf das Risiko von Unterbeschäftigung variiert ja nach Land. Stärkere Effekte werden in Zentral- und Osteuropa, Finnland und Deutschland beobachtet, vergleichsweises geringe oder keine Effekte in Großbritannien, Griechenland, Irland und Schweden." (Autorenreferat, IAB-Doku)

Zitatform

Wang, Haomin (2018): Intra-household risk sharing and job search over the business cycle. (DIW-Diskussionspapiere 1760), Berlin, 53 S.

Abstract

"This paper studies the extent to which working couples can insure one another against cyclical fluctuations in the labor market and examines the implications of joint household decision-making for cyclical fluctuations in the unemployment rate. For this purpose, I provide a dynamic life-cycle model of households that make joint savings and job search decisions in the presence of aggregate shocks. I show that two key mechanisms are at play. The first is the added-worker effect, which leads to counter-cyclical search intensity because workers increase search intensity when their spouse becomes unemployed. The second is the comparative advantage effect, according to which couples' job search efforts are coordinated based on the relative returns to search of each spouse. I estimate the model using data from the US Current Population Survey, and find that joint household decision-making contributes to the counter-cyclicality of women's unemployment rate, but not for men. Moreover, joint household decision-making lowers the welfare costs of cyclicality." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

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Wu, Chunzan & Dirk Krueger (2018): How much consumption insurance in bewley models with endogenous family labor supply? (NBER working paper 24472), Cambrige, Mass., 59 S. DOI:10.3386/w24472

Abstract

"We show that a calibrated life-cycle two-earner household model with endogenous labor supply can rationalize the extent of consumption insurance against shocks to male and female wages, as estimated empirically by Blundell, Pistaferri and Saporta-Eksten (2016) in U.S. data. With additively separable preferences, 43% of male and 23% of female permanent wage shocks pass through to consumption, compared to the empirical estimates of 34% and 20%. With non-separable preferences the model predicts more consumption insurance, with pass-through rates of 29% and 16%. Most of the consumption insurance against permanent male wage shocks is provided through the labor supply response of the female earner." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

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Yang, Tzu-Ting (2018): Family labor supply and the timing of cash transfers. Evidence from the Earned Income Tax Credit. In: The Journal of Human Resources, Jg. 53, H. 2, S. 445-473. DOI:10.3368/jhr.53.2.0115-6857R1

Abstract

"This paper exploits the unique disbursement timing and benefit rules of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) to provide new evidence on how families adjust their labor supply in response to receiving anticipated cash transfers. I find that income seasonality caused by EITC receipt leads to changes in the intra-year labor supply patterns of married women. On average, receiving a $1,000 payment significantly reduces the proportion of married women who work, by 1.3 percentage points, in the month when the EITC is received. Additionally, this labor supply response is mainly driven by those who are secondary earners or liquidity-constrained." (Author's abstract, © the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System) ((en))

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Aisenbrey, Silke & Anette Fasang (2017): The interplay of work and family trajectories over the life course. Germany and the United States in comparison. In: American Journal of Sociology, Jg. 122, H. 5, S. 1448-1484. DOI:10.1086/691128

Abstract

"This article uses sequence analysis to examine how gender inequality in work-family trajectories unfolds from early adulthood until middle age in two different welfare state contexts. Results based on the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and the German National Education Panel Study demonstrate that in Germany, all work-family trajectories are highly gender-specific irrespective of social class. In contrast, patterns of work-family interplay across the life course in the United States are, overall, less gendered, but they differ widely by social class. In fact, work-family patterns characterized by high occupational prestige are fairly equally accessible for men and women. However, women are far more likely than men to experience the joint occurrence of single parenthood and unstable low-prestige work careers in the United States. The authors contribute to the literature by bringing in a longitudinal, process-oriented life course perspective and conceptualizing work-family trajectories as interlocked, multidimensional processes." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))