When permitted by law, employers sometimes state the preferred age and sex of their employees in job ads. We study this practice using data from one Mexican and three Chinese job boards, showing that it is widely used to request both genders and is especially prevalent in jobs with low skill...

We investigate the role of social norms in accounting for differences in self-reported health as reported by men and women. Using the European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS, 2010), we first replicate the standard result that women report worse health than men, whatever the health outcome we...

It has been widely acknowledged that the effects of climate change are not gender neutral. However, existing studies on adaptation to climate change mainly focus on a comparison of male-headed and female-headed households. Aiming at a more nuanced gender analysis, this study examines how...

In the laboratory experiment reported in this paper we explore how evolving institutions and social norms, which we label 'culture', change individuals' preferences and behaviour in mainland China. From 1949 China experienced dramatic changes in its socio-economic institutions. These began with...

This paper studies the differential effect of targeting cash transfers to men or women on the structure of household expenditures on non-durables. We study a policy intervention in the Republic of Macedonia, offering cash transfers to poor households, conditional on having their children...

Differences in labor market outcomes for women and men are highly persistent. Apart from discrimination, one frequently mentioned explanation could be differences in the attitude towards competition for both genders. Abundant empirical evidence indicates that multiple influences shape attitudes...

This paper investigates the amount of academic service performed by female versus male faculty. We use 2012 data from an online annual performance reporting system for tenured and tenure‐track faculty at two campuses of a large public, Midwestern university as well as 2014 data from a large...

Evidence of gender differences in cooperation in social dilemmas is inconclusive. This paper experimentally elicits unconditional contributions, a contribution vector (cooperative preferences), and beliefs about the level of others' contributions in variants of the public goods game. We show...

This paper studies the differential effect of targeting cash transfers to men or women on the structure of household expenditures on non-durables. We study a policy intervention in the Republic of Macedonia, offering cash transfers to poor households, conditional on having their children...

Using the 2008 cross-sectional wave of the survey Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) and multi-level modeling techniques, this paper explores the macro-level determinants of the gender poverty gap in the ten post-socialist European Union member states. In dialogue with the...

The objective of this research was to study the variables affecting the consumer attitude to buy organic food that in turn affects the purchasing intention. Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) was used to explain this. The study variables include health consciousness, environmental consciousness,...

Using employees' longitudinal data, we study the effect of working hours on the propensity of firms to sponsor training of their employees. We show that, whereas male part-time workers are less likely to receive training than male full-timers, part-time working women are as likely to receive...

Over 300 government members have had the main responsibility for international development cooperation in 23 member countries of the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee since the organization started reporting detailed Official Development Assistance (ODA) data in 1967. Understanding their...

In recessions, predominantly men lose their jobs, which has given rise to the term "man-cessions". We analyze whether fiscal expansions bring men back into jobs. To do so, we estimate vector-autoregressive models and identify the effects of fiscal shocks and non-fiscal shocks on the gender...

There are large international differences in the gender pay gap. In some developed countries in 2010-2012, women were close to earnings parity with men, while in others large gaps remained. Since women and men have different average levels of education and experience and commonly work in...

Structural transformation in rural Viet Nam has led to rising incomes and a diversification of livelihoods away from agriculture. Using panel data on children in 2,181 rural households surveyed over the 2008-14 period, we examine how the welfare of children has been impacted by structural...

Entrepreneurship is an important lever for spurring transition in the economies of the former Soviet Union and Central and Eastern Europe. Utilizing diversity, in terms of religion or gender, can positively affect entrepreneurial development. Programs that encourage entrepreneurial initiatives...

This paper examines the relationship between caste and gender inequality in three states in India. When households are grouped using conventional, government-defined categories of caste we find patterns that are consistent with existing literature: lower-caste women are more likely to...

In this paper we analyse the impact of foreign aid on gender outcomes and attitudes. We do this by matching geocoded household surveys with aid projects. This offers a middle way between project evaluations and aggregated cross-country comparisons, measuring an average community effect around...

This paper investigates the role of social capital in determining one's competitiveness. The analysis exploits the data of the PISA test in math because competitive occupational choices often require high quantitative skills. The empirical results highlight that a higher level of trust in school...

We study the determinants of math achievement among children in early elementary school using data from a unique experiment. We find steep socioeconomic gradients and a substantial boy-girl gap in math test scores. However, among children of mothers with university education, there is no...

This paper discusses whether the Asian financial crisis affected men and women differently in Indonesia by estimating the effect of district consumption shock during the crisis on changes in men's and women's working status and assets. I found that in rural areas there seems to be no effect of...

Women are less willing than men to compete against others. This gender gap can partially explain the differences between women’s and men’s education and career choices, and the labor market disparities that result. The experiments presented here show that even though women are less willing...

Frauen sind im Durchschnitt seltener bereit, in Wettbewerb mit anderen Personen zu treten als Männer. Dieser Gender Gap in der Neigung zu konkurrieren ist einer von vielen Gründen für Unterschiede in den Bildungs- und Karriereentscheidungen von Frauen und Männern und für weitere Gender Gaps...

We show that increasing the intensity of product market competition can reduce discrimination against female managers, even in an environment in which all employers have a preference for discrimination. The reason is that due to the glass ceiling effect, female managers will, on average, be more...

Whereas most research into microfinance tends to focus on the impact of access to such services, very little pays attention to what happens over time once a person becomes a client. The paper aims at analysing the conditions of loan renewals as most microfinance institutions foster client...

Research on the gender earnings divide so far mostly focuses on the gender gap in hourly wages which, due to its snapshot nature, is inappropriate to capture the biographical dimension of gendered pay. With the 'gender lifetime earnings gap' (GLEG), we introduce a new measure that meets this...

The gender gap in risk-taking is often used to explain differences in labor market outcomes. Some studies, however, suggest that this gender gap does not extend to professional contexts. This paper examines potential drivers of the gender gap in risk-taking, comparing the professional context of...

Changing employment conditions lead to new chances, but also new risks for employees. In the literature, increasing permeability between occupational and private life is discussed as one special outcome of this development that employees must face, especially those in highly qualified positions....

This paper addresses the behavioral puzzle of women's preference for competition when competitors are also women. Using a framed field experiment with 883 non-standard subjects, we show that none of the determinants of competitive behavior in general, including ability, self-confidence and risk...

We document that U.S. employment polarization in the 1980-2008 period is largely generated by women. Female employment shares increase both at the bottom and at the top of the skill distribution, generating the typical U-shape polarization graph, while male employment shares decrease in a more...

Changing employment conditions lead to new chances, but also new risks for employees. In the literature, increasing permeability between occupational and private life is discussed as one special outcome of this development that employees must face, especially those in highly qualified positions....

We propose an assignment model in which positions along a hierarchy are attributed to individuals depending on their characteristics. Our theoretical framework can be used to study differences in assignment and outcomes across groups and we show how it can motivate decomposition and...

The study examined gender dimension of cross border migration in rural border communities of Ipokia local government area, Ogun State, Nigeria. The study specifically examined socio-economic characteristics of migrants, pattern of migration between male and female migrants and reasons for cross...

Individuals face competitive environments daily, and it is important to understand how emotions affect behavior in these environments and resulting economic consequences. Using a two-stage laboratory experiment, I analyze the role of reported emotions in tournament performance and assess how the...

This paper studies the impact of migrant children on their parents' occupation choice and wage income using a dataset from a household survey conducted in 2011. We find that the heads of migrant households with school-age children earn significantly less than those who left them at their place...

This article examines the impact of a large increase in female participation on occupational segregation. Increases in female participation may decrease occupational segregation if women enter male dominated sectors but may increase segregation if they enter already female dominated sectors....

One-third of married women are sterilized in India. This is largely due to family planning programs that put a strong emphasis on 'permanent' contraceptive methods rather than temporary ones. However, little is known about potential adverse effects on women's wellbeing. We analyse the...

Agricultural commercialization can help to lift subsistence farmers out of poverty, but can also have adverse effects on gender equality. We explore whether private food standards - with their particular elements to regulate production and trade - could serve as a vehicle to promote gender...

Identity is an important determinant of economic behavior. A limitation of the existing literature is the focus on one identity dimension at a time. We show that the multiplicity of identity dimensions matters for economic behavior and that neglecting it may lead policy makers to overlook...

Social attitudes toward women vary significantly across societies. This chapter reviews recent empirical research on various historical determinants of contemporary differences in gender roles and gender gaps across societies, and how these differences are transmitted from parents to children...

The dearth of women in top managerial positions is characterized by a high persistence and insensitivity to changes and differences in institutions and policies. This suggests it could be caused by slowly changing social norms and attitudes in the labor market, such as gender stereotypes and...

Men are generally found to be more willing to compete than women and there is growing evidence that willingness to compete is a predictor of individual and gender differences in career decisions and labor market outcomes. However, most existing evidence comes from the top of the education and...

Social engineering refers to deliberate attempts, often under the form of legislative moves, to promote changes in customs and norms that hurt the interests of marginalized population groups. This paper explores the analytical conditions under which social engineering is more or less likely to...

Background: This paper aims at explaining the gender wage gap in the labor market from the perspective of leisure participation patterns between men and women. The traditional view is that time and effort spent in childbearing activities are the major sources of gender wage gap. Women,...

This paper studies if competition affects subsequent risk-taking behaviour by means of a laboratory experiment that manipulates the degree of competitiveness of the environment under equivalent monetary incentives. We find that competition increases risk aversion, especially for males, but not...