Topic Gender

Momentum in Sight for the Executive Boards of Major German Companies: Editorial

Number of Women on Boards of Large Firms Increasing Slowly; Legal Requirements Could Provide Momentum

The proportion of women on the boards of large companies in Germany continued to increase during 2020. In the fourth quarter of 2020, there were 101 female executive board members in the 200 largest companies, seven more than in 2019. However, growth was slow, as it was in some of the other groups of companies as well: The proportion of women on the executive boards of the top 200 companies (around ...

Closing Routes to Retirement for Women: How Do They Respond?

We study the employment effects of a large increase in the early retirement age (ERA) of women. Raising the ERA has the potential to extend contribution periods and to reduce the number of pensioners at the same time. However, workers may not be able to work longer or may choose other social support programs as exit routes from employment. Results suggest that the reform increases employment, unemployment ...

The Gender Gap in Student Performance: The Role of the Testing Environment

Abstract:   Our research question is to what extent does the familiarity with the testing environment impact the relative performance of boys and girls in standardized testing. We use an RCT-design on the full population of students in Grade 6 and 10 across several subjects in the Region of Madrid (Spain). This standardized test was either "Externally" administered, meaning that teachers...

Selection into Employment and the Gender Wage Gap across the Distribution and over Time

Using quantile regression methods, this paper analyses the gender wage gap across the wage distribution and over time (1990-2014), while controlling for changing sample selection into full-time employment. Our findings show that the selection-corrected gender wage gap is much larger than the one observed in the data, which is mainly due to large positive selection of women into fulltime employment. ...

Fertility as a Driver of Maternal Employment

Based on findings from high-income countries, typically economists hypothesize that having more children unambiguously decreases the time mothers spend in the labor mar- ket. Few studies on lower-income countries, in which low household wealth, informal child care, and informal employment opportunities prevail, find mixed results. Using Mexican census data, I find a positive effect of an instrument-induced ...

Essays on Gender Pay Gaps and Wealth Concentration

Diese Dissertation besteht aus vier unabhängigen Kapiteln. Während sich die ersten drei Kapitel mit unterschiedlichen Gründen für den Gender Pay Gap auseinandersetzen, fokussiert sich das letzte Kapitel auf das obere Ender der Vermögensverteilung. Kapitel 1 befasst sich mit der Frage, warum einige Berufe große und andere nur geringe Gender Pay Gaps aufweisen und, ob dies mit den Berufsmerkmalen zusammenhängt. ...

Mothers in Eastern and Western Germany: Employment Rates and Attitudes Are Converging, Full-Time Employment is Not

Work and family life arrangements differed greatly between the east and west before German reunification in 1990. Since reunification, however, the employment rates of mothers with children requiring childcare have converged. This trend is accompanied by a growing approval of maternal employment, especially in western Germany. However, differences in actual working hours remain. Mothers in the east ...

Fertility as a Driver of Maternal Employment

Based on findings from high-income countries, typically economists hypothesize that having more children unambiguously decreases the time mothers spend in the labor mar- ket. Few studies on lower-income countries, in which low household wealth, informal child care, and informal employment opportunities prevail, find mixed results. Using Mexican census data, I find a positive effect of an instrument-induced ...

STEM Careers: Workshops Using Role Model Can Reduce Gender Stereotypes

Women continue to be underrepresented in STEM occupations (science, technology, engineering, and math). Based on a survey among secondary school students in Vienna, we show, for instance, that girls’ career aspirations, interests, and self-assessed skills in STEM fields are related to gender stereo- types. Parents also play a crucial role in this context. Further results indicate that a half-day career ...