Research on sex differences in humans documents gender differences in sensory, motor and spatial aptitudes. These aptitudes, as captured by Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT) codes, predict the occupational choices of men and women in the directions indicated by this research. We simulate...

Sports participation is a leading environmental explanation of the male advantage in some spatial skills. We exploit the large increase in females' high school sports participation due to Title IX to test this hypothesis. We relate Title IX induced increases in females' sport participation to...

We revisit the US evidence of the association of height with socioeconomic status. We document non linear height profiles that are different for males and females. For males the profile is a spline function with a single node at mean height. Below mean height there is a sharply positive slope...

I examine the effects of the introduction of the Spouse's Allowance to the Canadian Income Security (IS) system on the retirement behavior of couples. This program was effectively targeted at females in couples attempting to live on a single pension. It allowed qualifying spouses to receive the...

Mortality is a crucial indicator of wellbeing and recent mortality trends have been a subject of public debate in many Western countries. This paper compares mortality inequality in Canada and the U.S. over the period 1990/91 through 2010/11. In Canada, mortality inequality remained constant...

Past research has demonstrated that positive increments to the non-cognitive development of children can have long-run benefits. We test the symmetry of this contention by studying the effects of a sizeable negative shock to non-cognitive skills due to the introduction of universal child care in...

Maternity leaves can affect mothers' and infants' welfare if they first affect the amount of time working women stay at home post birth. We provide new evidence of the labor supply effects of these leaves from an analysis of the introduction and expansion of job-protected maternity leave in...

Several recent studies have found that earnings inequality in Canada has grown considerably since the late 1970's. Using an extraordinary data base drawn from longitudinal income tax records, we decompose this growth in earnings inequality into its persistent and transitory components. We find...

We explore the fiscal implications of reforms to the Canadian retirement income system by decomposing the fiscal effect of reforms into two components. The mechanical effect captures the change in the government's budget assuming no behavioral response to the reform. The second component is the...

The growing labor force participation of women with small children in both the U.S. and Canada has led to calls for increased public financing for childcare. The optimality of public financing depends on a host of factors, such as the %u201Ccrowd-out%u201D of existing childcare arrangements, the...