Segregated integration : recent trends in the Austrian gender division of labor

Using micro data from the Austrian Labor Force Survey, this paper explores how decreases in the gender differential in participation rates together with increasing differentials in the incidence of part-time jobs and stable or rising levels of occupational segregation by gender affect the gender division of labor. To so so, we propose an index for the gender division of labor based on the Mutual Information index. Our main results show that the gender division of labor is very stable along the 16-year period. This is so because although the rising female labor force participation reduces the gender division of labor, increases in gender differences in the incidence of part-time jobs and increases in occupational segregation result in greater division of labor across genders. These results are robust to alternative definitions of economic activity and labor market involvement and can also be found after controlling for educational levels and fields.