The Opt-In Revolution? Contraception and the Gender Gap in Wages
The Opt-In Revolution? Contraception and the Gender Gap in Wages
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DOI：
10.1257/app.4.3.225
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发表时间：
2012-07-01
影响因子：
6.2
通讯作者：
Miller, Amalia R.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Bailey, Martha J.;Hershbein, Brad;Miller, Amalia R.
数十年来，对美国工资性别差距的研究描述了其相关性，但对女性在20世纪60年代和70年代改变职业道路的原因知之甚少。本文探讨了“避孕药”在改变女性人力资本投资及其对生命周期工资的最终影响方面的作用。使用各州出生队列在法律的获取方面的差异，我们表明，到50岁时，年轻人获得避孕药的机会会使小时工资增加8%。我们的估计意味着，避孕药可以在20世纪80年代和90年代分别占性别差距收敛的10%和30%。
Decades of research on the US gender gap in wages describes its correlates, but little is known about why women changed their career paths in the 1960s and 1970s. This paper explores the role of "the Pill" in altering women's human capital investments and its ultimate implications for life-cycle wages. Using state-by-birth-cohort variation in legal access, we show that younger access to the Pill conferred an 8 percent hourly wage premium by age 50. Our estimates imply that the Pill can account for 10 percent of the convergence of the gender gap in the 1980s and 30 percent in the 1990s.