Collaborative Research: Understanding the Gender Gap in Earnings: Household Production, Market Production and Labor Contracts

本项目的目的是研究联合确定劳动力市场结果的性别差异和家庭内部的劳动分工。PI的分析基于两组经验观察。首先，无论是在家中还是在市场上，在“调整后”的劳动时间和工作时间方面，性别差异一直存在。其次，不同行业和职业的收入差异很大。PI探讨了这样一个假设，即这些差异是由家庭内部分配过程和公司与工人之间的劳动合同之间的相互作用产生的。PI提出，劳动力市场上的激励问题，由于关于家庭决策的私人信息，在不同性别劳动力市场结果不平等的出现中起着至关重要的作用。反过来，不同的劳动力市场结果会影响家庭中的性别角色，从而产生反馈机制。激励问题的存在意味着收入结构和收入水平应该在不同性别之间有所不同。PI对汇总数据的初步实证工作与这一假设大体一致。拟议的新工作将在多个方向上扩展分析。从理论上讲，PI的计划使用他们的框架来评估家庭生产中的技术进步可能如何影响劳动力市场结果和家庭分工的差异。从经验上讲，PI计划使用微观数据来直接评估对劳动力市场和家庭之间相互作用的预测，以及对性别收入结构的预测。智力价值这个项目的预期贡献是双重的。据他们所知，PI提出了第一个关于家庭内部性别分工和劳动力市场结果中的性别差异之间反馈的均衡模型。通常，供给侧理论被用来解释收入和就业方面的性别差异及其随时间的演变。这些考虑到了家庭内部的分工，并强调了它在造成不平等的市场结果方面的作用。相比之下，在我们的框架中，性别角色是内生的。他们假设的核心是确定劳动合同中的激励问题是基于性别的统计歧视的来源。PI也是第一个合理解释不同行业和职业的性别收入和就业差异的巨大差异的人。不同行业和职业的激励问题的严重程度不同，可能与不同性别的收入结构和工作时间不同有关，也可能与不同配偶的家庭内部存在差异有关。拟议的经验分析将使用匹配的家庭和收入数据来直接评估这些预测。布罗德影响这项研究的结果不仅可能引起经济学家的兴趣，也可能引起社会学家和政策制定者的兴趣。PI框架的一个重要含义是，劳动力市场上的性别平等与家庭分工中的平等密切相关。旨在减少收入机会中性别差距的政策如果不包括减少妇女对家庭生产的预期贡献的条款，这些政策很可能会失败。这项研究还将与PI的教学相结合，特别是在研究生层面。预计研究生研究助理将被介绍重要的研究技能和潜在的研究课题，以供他们自己开发。

The purpose of this project is to study the joint determination of gender differences in labormarket outcomes and the division of labor within the household. The PI's analysis is based on two sets of empirical observations. First, there are persistent gender differences in "adjusted" laborearnings and hours worked, at home and on the market. Second, there is a large variation ingender earnings differentials across industries and occupations. The PI's explore the hypothesis that these differentials arise endogenously from the interaction between the intra-household allocation process and labor contracting between firms and workers.The PI's propose that incentive problems on the labor market, due to private information onhousehold decisions, play a crucial role in the emergence of unequal labor market outcomesacross genders. In turn, the differential labor market outcomes influence gender roles within thehousehold, thus generating a feedback mechanism. The presence of incentive problems impliesthat the earnings structure, as well as the earnings level, should be different across genders. The PI's preliminary empirical work with aggregate data is broadly consistent with this hypothesis. Theproposed new work will extend the analysis in a number of directions. Theoretically, the PI's plan touse their framework to evaluate how technological progress in home production may influencegender differences in labor market outcomes and the household division of labor. Empirically, the PI's plan to use micro data to directly evaluate the predictions regarding the interaction between thelabor market and the household, as well as the predictions on the earnings structure by gender.Intellectual MeritThe intended contribution of this project is twofold. The PI's propose the first, to their knowledge,equilibrium model of the feedback between the gender division of labor within the household andgender differences in labor market outcomes. Typically, supply side theories have been used toexplain gender differences in earnings and employment and their evolution over time. These takeas given the division of labor within the household and emphasize its role in causing unequallabor market outcomes. By contrast, in our framework, gender roles are endogenous. Thecenterpiece of their hypothesis is to identify the incentive problem in labor contracting as a sourceof statistical discrimination on the basis of gender.The PI's are also the first to rationalize the large variance in gender earnings and employmentdifferentials across industries and occupations. The variation in the severity of incentive problemsacross industries and occupations can be related to differences in the earnings structure and homehours by gender, and within households across spouses. The proposed empirical analysis will usematched household and earnings data to directly evaluate these predictions.Broader ImpactsThe results of this research will potentially be of interest not only to economists, but also tosociologists, as well as to policymakers. One important implication of the PI's framework is thatgender equality on the labor market is intimately linked to equality in the household division oflabor. Policies aimed at reducing gender disparities in earning opportunities are likely to fail ifthey do not include provisions to reduce the expected contribution of women to home production.The research will also be integrated with the PI's teaching, especially at the graduate level. Itis expected that graduate research assistants will be introduced to important research skills andpotential research topics to develop on their own.