Home production, market production and the gender wage gap
Subtitle: incentives and expectations
By: Stefania Albanesi, Claudia Olivetti
Contributors: Olivetti, Claudia; National Bureau of Economic Research
Series: NBER working paper series -- working paper 12212; Working paper series (National Bureau of Economic Research : Online) -- working paper no. 12212.
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research
Published: 2006
Place of publication: Cambridge, MA
Language: eng
Format: [electronic resource] :
Description: "The purpose of this paper is to study the joint determination of gender differentials in labor market outcomes and in the household division of labor.  Specifically, we explore the hypothesis that incentive problems in the labor market amplify differences in earnings due to gender differentials in home hours.  In turn, earnings differentials across genders reinforce the division of labor within the household.  This gives rise to a potentially self-fulfilling feedback mechanism.  As a consequence, gender differentials in earnings will be larger than any initial difference in relative productivity across genders.  Even if productivity in home and market work is the same for female and male workers, both gendered and ungendered equilibria are possible and equally likely.  If womens' comparative advantage in home production is large enough, there exists a unique equilibrium in which they have higher home hours and lower earnings than men.  Our model delivers predictions on the relation between earnings ratios, incentive pay and home hours.  First, gender earnings differentials should be higher for married workers in occupations in which the incentive problem is more severe.  This effect should be stronger when the gender difference in home hours is greater.  Moreover, the difference in the fraction of incentive pay across genders should be smaller for higher values of the female/male earnings ratio.  Second, the husband/wife ratio of home hours should be negatively related with both the husband/wife earnings ratio and the difference in the fraction of incentive pay.  We use the Census and the PSID to study these predictions and find that they are amply supported by the data"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site.
Notes: Title from PDF file as viewed on 5/24/2006.

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