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One of the leading national and international objectives is to achieve more egalitarian societies. Avoiding gender or digital gaps are priorities generally assumed as concerns of governments and international organizations. This paper evaluates the digital gender divide in its three stages: access, use and results, relating it to gender and salary gaps in the context of the European Union. Cluster analysis was conducted to classify the countries according to their gender digital divide. The influence of age and studies level of males and females was revised. Based on the OECD and EUROSTAT data, an empirical analysis was conducted. By comparison of means, the significant variables influencing the gender digital divide were identified, probing that the educational level significantly influences it, especially in what refers to the third stage. Finally, through a regression analysis, it was proved that the influence of the insecurity and the gender wage gap goes beyond the women and affects society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The risk of poverty among older people varies widely across countries and between men and women. This is usually explained by reference to institutional differences in pension systems or differences in employment histories. However, many other factors also come into play. In this paper we argue that, to avoid biased conclusions, it is necessary to take into account the role of household structure. This study of 14 European Union (EU) countries investigates the impact of household structure on gender differences in old-age poverty risk. The empirical examination is based on European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC). The findings show that older women's high poverty risk is strongly related to the financial vulnerability of single-person households and the higher prevalence of female than male single-person households. In addition, gender differences in poverty risk can be attributed to gender differences in household structure. It matters whether the older person lives with another older person or an employed/unemployed person and whether there are minor children in the household. Country differences in the gender poverty gap are linked to country differences in the household age structure and the poverty risks of different types of households. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The gender gap in the boardroom has received a great deal of attention in the literature. However, little is known about what causes the gender gap in the boardroom, especially from board members' perspective. This paper aims to produce a deeper understanding of the gender gap, based on evidence from 29 semi-structured, in-depth interviews with board members. Our study reveals that the best ways to access a board position are through networks and job positions. However, for most participants, being a board member is still perceived as a male-dominated position. Due to this perception, female board members can experience lower self-efficacy at first, questioning their abilities to join the board. Our study reveals several ways to act on the gender gap in the boardroom. Seeing female role models on the board, having a positive experience as board members and receiving effective training can all enhance women's self-efficacy. Also, leaders who are in favor of having women on the board, organizational policies, and mandatory quotas of women on the board can contribute to reducing the gender gap. Our study provides a deeper understanding of the challenges facing women when accessing a top role such as a board position. Our findings can help policy-makers and organizations act on the gender gap in the boardroom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since women were given the right to vote in the first half of the twentieth century, several studies verify the existence of noticeable differences in women and men voting conduct. Theories explaining such behavior rely mainly on stereotypes, differences in values as well as disparities in self-perceptions of men and women. This paper, using a unique and unusual gender-segregated voting booths that was in use in Argentina until 2007, suggests that labor market incentives play a key role explaining the electoral gender gap. Our estimations, which come out from a panel data of five presidential elections at district level, show that the voting gender gap reduces as women acquire the head of household status. That is, as women face analogous incentives to men, their evaluation of the incumbent performance and their policies tend to be similar to males leading to a reduction in the gender gap. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: This paper investigates how the COVID-19 school closure has affected the gender gap in grade-8 students' performance and what are the drivers behind this. By analysing four different countries (i.e., the Russian Federation, Slovenia, Uzbekistan and the United Arab Emirates), the paper represents the first study addressing the issue from a comparative perspective. Methods: The study uses data from the Responses to Educational Disruption Survey (REDS) survey, which comprises international comparable data on how students approached remote learning during the COVID-19 disruption. The extent of the gender gap is estimated by employing an ordered logit model, while the Karlson-Holm-Breen (KHB) decomposition method is used to analyse the different potential channels that could account for the gender gap during COVID-19. Results: The empirical results reveal that, during the COVID-19 school closure, girls tended to perceive changes in their learnings less favourably than boys, both in terms of improvement in self-perceived learning and self-reported improvement in grades—with odds of a more affirmative response between 20 and 25% lower for girls relative to boys. The main drivers explaining this gender gap are physical activity and psychological distress of students during the COVID-19 disruption, as well as the perceived family climate. Conclusions: The paper shows systematic gender differences in how students perceived their educational outcomes changed due to the COVID-19 disruption, providing evidence on the factors driving these differences. The findings could be employed to design policy actions aimed at increasing gender equality in education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the gender gap in time allocation in European countries, offering a comparison of the 2000s and the 2010s, along with an explanation of the documented gender gaps, based on social norms and institutional factors. The results show that the gender gap in both paid and unpaid work has decreased in most countries, but with a significant level of cross-country heterogeneity in the size of the gender gaps. More traditional social norms are related to greater gender inequalities in paid and unpaid work, while countries with better family-friendly policies and a greater representation of women in politics and in the labour market exhibit smaller gender inequalities. This paper provides a comprehensive analysis of gender gaps in Europe, and attempts to monitor the progress towards the elimination of gender inequalities. Despite that some degree of gender convergence in paid and unpaid work has taken place, there remain inequalities in the distribution of labour in European countries, and possible solutions may be related to social norms and family-friendly policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digitization and increased accessibility to recorded music have made revenue-generating activities increasingly tied to live performances. In this context, identifying the full impact of concerts (namely capturing the value of activities that emerge as a consequence of them) is of primary interest to assess the sustainability of the different music ecosystems. This paper analyzes spillover effects from playing live to YouTube video streaming. A sample of 190 artists performing in two international music festivals in years 2016 to 2019 has been selected, and the temporal patterns of online video searches for each one have been collected. Using a regression discontinuity design, results show a discrete jump of the YouTube search index for the average performer in the sample after playing live. Furthermore, there is evidence of a gender-specific effect: female performers experience a greater increase in YouTube searches. Though exploratory, this gender bias is consistent with potential theoretical explanations to be explored. Overall, findings provide causal evidence of the effect of live performances on a related but different market (i.e., recorded music), which underlines how technological disruptions may enable alternative revenue sources for musicians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Compared to their male peers, female entrepreneurs tend to face greater obstacles in raising venture funding from business angels, venture capitalists, and financial institutions. In this paper, we investigate whether this gender gap also exists in equity crowdfunding. Based on data from the German equity crowdfunding market, we find that ventures with and without female managing directors are equally successful in raising capital when launching their first equity crowdfunding campaign. In contrast, the former are significantly less successful than their peers in seasoned equity crowdfunding campaigns, and this disparity cannot be fully explained by differences in other venture-related or entrepreneur-related characteristics. However, we also find that the gender gap in seasoned offerings narrows if female entrepreneurs set more ambitious funding thresholds. Overall, our results indicate that pitching their equity crowdfunding campaigns in a more promotion-oriented way is a sensible strategy for female entrepreneurs to improve funding success. Plain English Summary: Equity crowdfunding enables female entrepreneurs to narrow the "gender gap" in venture financing. In this paper, we investigate whether the entrepreneurs' gender affects how successful they are in attracting capital in the German equity crowdfunding market. Our results indicate that the gender of a firm's managing director does not affect the funding outcome in initial equity crowdfunding campaigns. In seasoned equity crowdfunding offerings, though, we identify a gender gap in the sense that ventures with female managing directors are significantly less successful in raising capital from crowd investors than ventures solely led by men. However, this gender gap in seasoned offerings narrows for bolder campaign pitches. Hence, setting a higher funding threshold seems to be a simple and straightforward strategy for female entrepreneurs to increase the odds of reaching their funding targets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature on lottery gambling shows that players do not select numbers randomly, a phenomenon which is called conscious selection. Mainly, players prefer "small" numbers (less than thirty), either because of the existence of small lucky numbers or because they are victims of the so-called birthday-number effect. Because lotto games are parimutuel, such preferences result in poor ticket choices in terms of achieving below average returns. Using data from Belgium, where approximately 10% of the population plays lotto games every week, this paper extends prior literature by documenting the existence of a gender gap in the birthday-number effect, with women displaying a stronger birthday-number effect than men, as well as the non-persistence of the birthday-number effect (and consecutively of the gender gap) when participants are asked to fill in a second lotto ticket immediately after their first one. The disappearance of the birthday-number effect in sequential choices appears to be driven by response speed, with participants being twice as fast to fill in the second ticket compared to the first one. Moreover, we find that participants who bet on their birthday numbers take significantly more time to complete their ticket. Contrary to prior research, we find that the strength of the birthday-number effect is positively related to deliberative number choices, not intuitive and automatic number choices. Our results are robust to controlling for potential confounding effects including those related to participants' age, education, self-esteem, and superstitious beliefs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the educational context, one of the main goals is to reduce the disparities among students, generally at the national level, to allow all individuals to achieve a similar cultural background. Using data from a large-scale standardised test administered by INVALSI (National Institute for the Evaluation of the Educational System), this paper offers a first longitudinal analysis of the performance in the maths test of a cohort of students enrolled in 2013/2014 at grade 8 and observed up to grade 13. The aim is to identify those obstacles that undermine students' learning to help adopt informed educational actions. Specific features of these data are their hierarchical structure and the presence of not vertically scaled scores. Two approaches have been followed for their analysis: growth models and growth percentiles. Coherently with the literature, our results suggest the presence of a gender gap, a significant impact of the type of school, and of social-cultural background. Differently from previous research on the INVALSI data, we evaluate these time-invariant covariates' effects on students' performance over different school cycles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of International Journal of Early Childhood is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Gender roles demand that women devote more time to non-market labor such as childcare and household responsibilities. Therefore, the labor market hinders women's ability to compete with their male counterparts, whose time is less subject to the demands of non-market work. The result is a performance gap between men and women. To obtain the flexibility to more efficiently perform both their market and non-market work, many women choose to be self-employed and operate their businesses from home. Using a large sample of US firms, we find that women who choose to operate their own businesses from home are able to narrow the performance gap between men and women entrepreneurs. Plain English Summary Women partially overcome societal disadvantages by running businesses from home. Women business owners achieve significant synergies by working from home that enable them to narrow the gap in performance relative to men. An analysis of over 600,000 small businesses reveals that there is a significant gap in performance between businesses run by men versus those run by women. Prior research shows that men enjoy structural advantages over women due to society's demands on women's time to perform household duties or provide childcare. We find that women are able to narrow the resulting performance gap by operating their businesses from home, providing them increased flexibility to manage their time. Our paper indicates that supporting women-owned businesses with policies that grant greater flexibility or more equitably or efficiently distribute household work can improve economic efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Zeitschrift für Erziehungswissenschaft is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper investigates gender differentials in citations of articles published between 2003 and 2014 in two journals specialized in Demographic Economics, the Journal of Population Economics (JPOP) and the Review of Economics of the Household (REHO). We utilize different definitions of authorship. Articles with female corresponding authors receive 24% more citations than articles with male corresponding authors. Citations go up by 36% when there is a female co-author. We did not detect any significant associations between citations and male co-authors. In addition, citations go up with the proportion of female authors. We discuss some potential explanations for our findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using an original microeconomic database with information for around 200,000 individuals, this paper creates new estimates of internal migrations in Spain in a key moment of its economic history. Our analysis shows that internal migrations were not a linear process including both periods of stagnation and also rapid growth, and that the 1850s were a decade of surprising high mobility in the absence of modern transportation. We also conclude that the rise in mobility was geographically asymmetrical with traditional urban centres losing ground against the rise of Madrid and Barcelona. The modernisation of the country also had significant social impacts with the migratory gender gap being significantly reduced prior to 1870. An analysis of the determinants of internal migrations suggests that traditional push and pull factors described by the literature in the early twentieth century seem to be also behind the early migrations of the mid-nineteenth century. The modernisation of the country provided new opportunities in urban areas that, combined with falling transport and information costs, created the perfect conditions for the 'democratisation' of long-distance migrations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, many studies have referred to the interdependence between cognitive (hard-skills) and students' academic performance. However, despite their relevance, soft-skills have not received the same treatment and have not been analysed as extensively, particularly from a gender perspective. Therefore, and bearing in mind that analysing from a gender perspective is essential to reduce occupational segregation and soft-skills can enhance young people's personal and academic development, throughout this paper we have analysed the gender gap in soft-skills with a sample of 15–16 years old students from the Spanish region of Andalusia. To do so, we have used a recent innovation of the Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition technique. Our results show not only that the gender gap in soft-skills is correlated with gender stereotypes, but also that grade retention or being an immigrant show a greater degree of association with boys' soft-skills than girls', while mothers' educational level is more correlated with the soft-skills of girls. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the gender gap in net wealth. We use administrative data on wealth that are linked to the Estonian Household Finance and Consumption Survey, which provides individual-level wealth data for all household types. The unconditional gender gap in mean wealth is 45%, but this sizeable gap in means originates mainly from the top tail of the distribution, where men have much more wealth than women, while the gender differences in wealth are statistically insignificant in most of the lower wealth quintiles. At the top of the distribution the differences in wealth can be explained by larger self-employment activity of men. Men have more business wealth than women do, and the gender wealth gap is the largest for this asset class. The gender wealth gaps across different household types are very heterogeneous. The unconditional gaps in wealth are strongly in favour of men throughout most of the wealth distribution for married couples. For single-member households, on the other hand, the raw gaps are in favour of women in the lower half of the wealth distribution. These raw gaps in opposite directions can mostly be explained by differences in the observed characteristics of men and women among married couples vs single people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the gendered impact of the nationwide lockdown (March–May 2020) due to the Covid-19 pandemic on the Italian labour market. Based on Labour Force Survey data on the first three quarters of 2020, we define a Triple Difference-in-Differences (DDD) strategy by exploiting the exact timing of the lockdown implementation. After controlling for several individual and job-related characteristics, we found that in non essential sectors (treated group) the lockdown enlarged pre-existent gender inequalities in the extensive margin of employment: the probability of job loss got 0.7 p.p. higher among female workers compared to their male counterparts, and this difference was mainly detected during the reopening period rather than in the strict lockdown phase. The probability to benefit from the wage guarantee fund (CIG), a subsidy traditionally granted by the government for partial or full–time hours reduction, was also higher for female compared to male treated workers (3.6 p.p.), both during the lockdown and in the reopening phase. This marks a great change with respect to the past, as the application of short-term work compensation schemes was traditionally restricted to male-dominated sectors of employment. On the other hand, no significant gender differences emerged among the treated group either in the intensive margin (working hours) or in terms of remote working, at least in the medium-term. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Differences in the representation of diversity in higher education, emphasising the gender gap in some areas, are issues addressed from different research domains. Socially, gender roles have been constructed and are also related to professions. In this context, the Social Cognitive Career Theory explores the possible causes of segregation. This segregation is evident in Europe and Spain, as indicated by the European Institute for Gender Equality. This paper describes the design and validation process of an instrument to find out what opinions university students have about higher education studies in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), according to gender. After drafting the questionnaire, it was piloted in a non-experimental quantitative design in Spain. Subsequently, a validity and reliability study was applied to validate the items and construct their dimensionality. The process was implemented using Reliability Analysis and Exploratory Factor Analysis. Also, the dimensionality consists of five scales: Gender Ideology, Perception and Self-perception, Expectations about Science, Attitudes and Interests. Based on the results, it is concluded that the opinion about STEM studies is conditioned by personal elements, such as motivations, educational background and family and social influences, such as people who judged their decision, were their references or studied STEM programs. Finally, it is essential to pay socio-educational attention to the modulating components of decisions about which higher education studies to pursue. Awareness of the factors involved in the decision helps the educational community to establish mechanisms to prevent horizontal gender segregation. The instrument designed, validated and presented in this study provides a glimpse of possible causes for the gender gap in STEM higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to construct a financial well-being index and analyze its determinants among adults in Mexico. It employs multiple correspondence analysis, multiple linear regression, and ordinal logistic models created over data from the National Survey on Financial Inclusion 2018. The results confirm that the amount of income and its regularity, education, being a man, married, retired, student or worker contribute to elevating financial well-being. This work adds to the body of knowledge of subjective well-being, a topic slightly studied in Mexico, thus, its originality. The lack of data regarding financial satisfaction or stress is among its main limitations. Nevertheless, our findings can help implement policies and design financial products that propitiate financial well-being and improve the quality of life in Mexico and emerging nations with comparable socioeconomic conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The gender structure in research and development (R&D) activities has received more and more attention in terms of its increasing importance in R&D management, but it is still not clear what the R&D efficiency discrepancy between female and male personnel is in the science and technology (S&T) field and whether the gender structure affects the R&D efficiency. Based on the region-level panel dataset of China's research institutes, this study uses four types of R&D outputs (papers, books, patents and standards) together and individually to measure R&D efficiency score to reveal this topic. When four types of R&D outputs are jointly considered, this paper applies the multi-output stochastic frontier analysis and finds that in general the higher proportion of male R&D personnel produces the higher R&D efficiency. Nevertheless, in terms of S&T papers or S&T books as a single R&D output, we find that the higher proportion of female R&D personnel leads to the higher R&D efficiency. On the contrary, the R&D efficiency is lower with the higher proportion of female R&D personnel when the single R&D output is measured by invention patent applications or national/industrial standards, respectively. Our findings suggest that the female R&D personnel are more effective in conducting scientific research activities, while their counterparts are more effective in doing technology development activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is much research indicating the presence of a parental preference for a particular gender of children. The main objective of this paper is to test between the two main explanations for the existence of such preference, namely differences in the costs of raising sons and daughters versus the gender bias (corresponding to parental utility derived from a child’s gender or from characteristics exclusive to that gender). First, we use recent EU-SILC data from several Balkan and Scandinavian countries to confirm that the gender of the firstborn predicts the likelihood of a given family having three children or more—a common measure of parental gender preference. We confirm son preference in certain Balkan countries and daughter preference in Scandinavian countries. Both having a first child of the preferred gender and of the more costly gender can decrease the probability of having three or more children because parents may already be content or may lack sufficient resources, respectively. Next, we use information on household consumption to differentiate the two explanations. We argue that under the differential cost hypothesis, parents of children of the more costly gender should spend more on goods for children and less on household public goods as well as on parental personal consumption. In contrast, having children of the preferred gender should increase spending on household public goods since such families have higher marriage surplus and are more stable. Our evidence corroborates the cost difference explanation in countries exhibiting daughter preference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The demographic shift experienced by developed countries inevitably results in a change in intergenerational relations. However, despite some attempts to evaluate intergenerational balance in quantitative terms, there is still a significant literature gap in this respect. This paper aims to propose a conceptual and empirical framework to measure intergenerational balance in a cross-country perspective which can serve for the comparative assessment of the outcomes of various policies. It addresses the research question in which countries selected generations are privileged over others in socio-economic terms. Our empirical study includes the investigation of the (relative) situation of different generations as well as comparisons of gender differences in terms of studied welfare state performance across generations to examine whether gender equality in some generations is more promoted than in others. As a criterion, we employ multivariate statistical analysis methods to group 25 European countries into clusters using the intergenerational balance in terms of poverty, income, housing, labour market, education and health. We distinguish four patterns in this respect: 'Supporting young', 'Supporting adult', 'Discriminating against elderly' and 'Supporting elderly'. Our findings reveal that shifting the perspective from inputs to outcomes and including gender perspective gives a somewhat different picture of Europe in terms of intergenerational balance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the empirical evidence pointing to a gender gap in professional, academic philosophy in the English-speaking world is widely accepted, explanations of this gap are less so. In this paper, we aim to make a modest contribution to the literature on the gender gap in academic philosophy by taking a quantitative, corpus-based empirical approach. Since some philosophers have suggested that it may be the argumentative, “logic-chopping,” and “paradox-mongering” nature of academic philosophy that explains the underrepresentation of women in the discipline, our research questions are the following: Do men and women philosophers make different types of arguments in their published works? If so, which ones and with what frequency? Using data mining and text analysis methods, we study a large corpus of philosophical texts mined from the JSTOR database in order to answer these questions empirically. Using indicator words to classify arguments by type (namely, deductive, inductive, and abductive arguments), we search through our corpus to find patterns of argumentation. Overall, the results of our empirical study suggest that women philosophers make deductive, inductive, and abductive arguments in their published works just as much as male philosophers do, with no statistically significant differences in the proportions of those arguments relative to each philosopher’s body of work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper identifies a set of factors associated with the decision to become an entrepreneur and the variables that account for the gender gap in entrepreneurial activity in Latin America. We estimate logit models for entrepreneurial activity under three different definitions of an entrepreneur. We also estimate the gender gap by using Fairlie's decomposition method. Depending on the definition of entrepreneur used, the overall gender gap varies from 4 to 13 % points. Differences in observable characteristics explain between 23 and 38 % of the total gender gap. The factors that explain both entrepreneurial activity and gender gap are: education, risk tolerance; own car as primary means of transportation; work satisfaction; and parent business ownership. Variables such as age, access to loans, and need for achievement are significantly associated with entrepreneurial activity, but they play a negligible role in explaining the gender gap. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is concerned with the historical roots of gender equality. It proposes and empirically assesses a new determinant of gender equality: gender-specific outside options in the marriage market. In particular, enlarging women's options besides marriage—even if only temporarily—increases their bargaining power with respect to men, leading to a persistent improvement in gender equality. We illustrate this mechanism focusing on Belgium, and relate gender-equality levels in the 19th century to the presence of medieval, female-only communities called beguinages that allowed women to remain single amidst a society that traditionally advocated marriage. Combining geo-referenced data on beguinal communities with 19th-century census data, we document that the presence of beguinages contributed to decrease the gender gap in literacy. The reduction is sizeable, amounting to a 12.3% drop in gender educational inequality. Further evidence of the beguinal legacy is provided leveraging alternative indicators of female agency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Productivity and citedness of the staff of a German medical research institution are analyzed. It was found in our previous study (Pudovkin et al.: Scientometrics, doi:, ) that male scientists are more prolific and cited more often than female scientists. We explain in our present study one of the possible causes for obtaining this result with reference to Abramo et al. (Scientometrics 84(3): 821-833, ), who found in the small subgroups of star scientists a higher performance of male star scientists with respect to female star scientists; but in the remaining complementary subpopulations the performance gap between the two sexes is marginal. In agreement with Abramo et al. (), in our small subgroup of star scientists a higher performance of male star scientists with respect to female star scientists could be found. Contrasting, in the large complementary subgroup even a slightly higher performance of female scientists with respect to male scientists was identified. The last is even stronger expressed in favor of women than Abramo's result that the performance gap between the two sexes is truly marginal. In addition to Abramo et al. (), we already found in our previous study, special indexes characterizing the quality of papers (but not quantity) are not substantially different among sexes compared. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we measure the number of years that men and women have been expected to spend in the labour market at age 16 and at age 50 during the period 1986–2016. The objective is twofold. First, we show the change in active years during these three decades, and calculate the gender gap in the time spent in different work statutes (active/inactive, employed/unemployed). Second, we examine the increased prevalence of precarious employment conditions over time. Precarious work is measured through a multidimensional indicator using the Spanish Labour Force Survey. We combined this dataset with registered population data to calculate life expectancy in the labour market, and found that the gender gap in employment has largely reduced due to women's increased activity. Women have gained 13.6 years of employment during the period considered here, while men lost almost 5 years. In addition, precarious forms of working lives have been growing extensively, and have especially affected younger cohorts, drawing a clear trend towards a dual labour market. In addition, women have spent more time in precarious employment than men at all ages, indicating that most of the growth in females' employment has been under precarious job conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we use data on mixed-gender dual-earner couples in Southern and Western Europe to investigate how the division of unpaid household labor within mixed-gender couples varies depending on the ratio of the partners' market wages. From analysis of the EU Statistics on Income and Living Conditions, we first show that married or cohabiting women do twice as much household work as single women with the same income. Furthermore, women's time spent in home production does not vary in relation to the couple's relative wages in Southern Europe. We find a positive elasticity of substitution between male and female labor in home production with respect to their relative within-couple wages in Western Europe. Our identification is based on predicting each country's wage distributions within gender-specific cells defined by age group and education using distributions in all the other countries. We present a positive evidence for presence of a "second-shift" that women face especially in Southern Europe, which may stem from regional gender norms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the impact that gender segregation in the labour market exerts on the underemployment gender gap for young adult workers in Spain. In order to analyse the relative importance of segregation in this gap, we develop a methodology based on two counterfactual simulations that provides a detailed decomposition of the gap into endowments and coefficients effects as well as the interaction of these effects. To the best of our knowledge, we are the first to perform a decomposition using bivariate probit models with sample selection. Using annual samples of the Spanish Labour Force Survey 2006–2016, the results show that working in female-dominated occupations or industries hinders working as many hours as desired, especially for women. Furthermore, we conclude that the gender gap in underemployment is mainly due to the different distribution of male and female workers across occupations and industries. Additionally, the different impact by gender that working in the same gender-typing jobs exerts on the risk of underemployment contributes to widening the gap. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we examine the impact of natural resource wealth by focusing on historical coal-mining across European regions. As an exogenous source of variation in coal extraction activities, we rely on the presence of coal-deposits located on the earth's surface, which historically facilitated the discovery and extraction of coal. Our results show that former coal-mining regions are substantially poorer, with (at least) 10% smaller per-capita GDP than comparable regions in the same country that did not mine coal. We provide evidence that much of this lag is explained by lower levels of human capital accumulation and that this human-capital effect is concentrated in men. Finally, we provide suggestive evidence that the persistently lower levels of human capital in coal mining regions that we document result from the crystallization of negative attitudes towards education and lower future orientations in these regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines gender differences according to two new indicators in higher education studies. One indicator represents the length of studies beyond the minimum requirement and the other represents a harmonised graduation mark. We explore these indicators in a statistical framework that consists of Survival analysis Kaplan–Meier methods, Accelerated Failure Time models, Survival Trees, Multivariate Regression Trees and a modified Gender Parity Index. This unique combination of statistical methods allows both to analyse data involving censoring and to incorporate other explanatory variables in the analysis. The approaches were applied to data taken from a Greek and an Italian University and provide evidence that the survival analysis is a useful tool for exploring gender gaps in higher education while the Accelerated Failure Time model permits the investigation of how other variables can influence the gaps. The data mining techniques of survival trees and multivariate regression trees allows for the importance of such influencing variables to be measured and illustrates these in a simple to view tree structure. The Multivariate Regression Tree approach allows us to consider more than one continuous outcome variable so we were able to consider the two proposed indicators simultaneously. Interesting insights from this analysis are that gender has an important role and women outperform regarding these new indicators by taking less length of studies, less graduation time with higher performance, controlling also for other student characteristics. The modified gender parity index enriched the results in all stages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper used data from 6 waves of the China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS) 1993-2009 to examine the effects of child gender, number of siblings, and sibling composition on children's health status, noting particularly any gender gaps, in the context of China's one-child policy. In the 1990s, the enforcement of the policy became less stringent, and ultrasound technologies, which enable prenatal gender selection, became more available. This led us to believe that the girls who were born were wanted by parents. In addition, growing income and industrialization should also narrow the gender gap in health status. Our results showed that on average, being a female decreased height-for-age approximately by 0.08 z-score as well as having an additional male sibling decreased height-for-age roughly by 0.17 z-score for a child under age 8. These results were particularly strong in the rural area but were non-existent in urban areas and among only-children. Our argument is that the gender gap was due to son preference and not sibling rivalry. Additionally, we found that having only one brother appeared to have a positive effect on girls' health status, compared to boys with another brother who tended to become rivals for household resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to analyze the gender gap in educational outcomes from different student assessment methods. I exploit a college application setting in which the centralized admission system allocates students based on a composite score, which is a weighted average of high school grade point average and a standardized test score. Using administrative data, I find that females significantly outperform males in high school grade point average in every subject, and not only on average but also at all quantiles. Yet the situation is reversed when it comes to standardized test scores: males outperform females in all subjects and almost all quantiles, with the largest magnitude of the difference in quantitative subjects and highest quantiles. Based on these findings, I argue that the gender gap is affected by the student assessment method used in a centralized system of college admissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gendered food security gaps between female- and male-headed households (FHHs and MHHs) can be decomposed into two sets of components: those explained by observable differences in levels of resource use, and those due to unobserved differences affecting the returns to the resources used. Employing exogenous switching ordered probit and binary probit regression models, this paper examines the gendered food security gap and its causes in rural Malawi. We conducted a counterfactual analysis and found that the food security of FHHs would improve significantly if they had the same levels of resource use as MHHs. However, even if FHHs had the same levels of resource use as MHHs, the gendered food security gap would not be closed because of the differences in the returns to those resources. Such differences in returns to resources explain 40 % (45 %) of the observed gendered chronic (transitory) food insecurity gap and 54 % (19 %) of the food break-even (surplus) gap. Further analysis suggests that the intensity with which sustainable agricultural practices have been adopted has a greater impact on the food security of FHHs than on MHHs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate gender disparities in the effect of COVID-19 on the labor market outcomes of skilled Ugandan workers. Leveraging a high-frequency panel dataset, we find that the lockdowns imposed in Uganda reduced employment by 69% for women and by 45% for men, generating a previously nonexistent gender gap of 20 p.p. Eighteen months after the onset of the pandemic, the gap persisted: while men quickly recovered their pre-pandemic career trajectories, 10% of the previously employed women remained jobless and another 35% remained occasionally employed. Additionally, the lockdowns shifted female workers from wage-employment to self-employment, relocated them into agriculture and other unskilled sectors misaligned with their skill sets, and widened the gender pay gap. Pre-pandemic sorting of women into economic sectors subject to the strongest restrictions and childcare responsibilities induced by schools' prolonged closure only explain up to 65% of the employment gap. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The motherhood wage penalty is often cited as a contributor towards the gender earnings gap. A common explanation involves women's labor supply reductions after having children. Yet, the literature says little about whether mothers' labor supply reductions are entirely voluntary. This study utilizes two US longitudinal panels to measure children's impact on parent job loss. Mothers are significantly more likely than fathers to involuntarily lose their jobs. The gap is substantial, persists over time, is robust to various model specifications, exists among a host of demographic sub-samples, and is driven by gender differences in characteristic effects rather than levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: In a case study in Spain, the unequal proportion of men and women in a research organization in the energy sector is severe, and long-established dynamics that might determine differences in access to leadership positions and inequalities in research careers are evident. The gender gap in historically masculinized fields, such as energy engineering reflects more than simply the differences in male and female values and personalities. This study seeks to explore the gender gap in energy research centres and to identify barriers that potentially hinder the research careers of women. It proposes the development of a diagnostic tool, based upon indicators, to monitor and evaluate gender roles and inequalities in the management of research centres for identifying and addressing the dynamics and obstacles that hinder women's progress in the energy sector and their potential contribution to the field. This participatory multicriteria-based tool prioritizes the proposed indicators by their influence and importance in the context of energy research and applies it to the monitoring of a specific Spanish energy research centre. Results: The results are threefold: (i) the methodology is adaptable to different research centres; (ii) the analysis of indicators' prioritization could lead to recommendations that should be addressed first; (iii) the diagnostic tool used in this in-depth case study of an energy research centre in Spain allowed results to be achieved in terms of gender dynamics. Two indicators stand out as the most relevant in our analysis: gender diversity in leadership positions and uncomplicated application of work–life balance measures. In this case study, the measurement of the first indicator has drawn unsatisfactory results, and the research of the latter is considered still insufficient. In conclusion, this difference becomes a vicious or negative circle for attracting and retaining more women to the research centre. Despite these results, no gender gap seems to be recognized and thus, no measures are being taken to improve the situation. Conclusions: Comprehensive data and contextualized monitoring are necessary to effectively study and enhance the presence and participation of women in the energy science sector. This approach, combining quantitative and qualitative techniques, is suitable for any research centre that would like to monitor its gender gap, identify potential sources of inequity and address them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the social and economic factors influencing the enrollment rates of women and men in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields across all 81 provinces in Turkey, utilizing a spatial econometric analysis model. This model, considering regional characteristics and spatial relationships, allows for a comprehensive understanding of the geographical distribution of interest in STEM fields and the gender disparities within. Analyses at both global and local levels were conducted to test for the presence of spatial patterns. The impact of social and economic factors on gender-specific enrollment rates in STEM fields was assessed using Ordinary Least Squares analysis, without accounting for spatial autocorrelation. The dataset, based on provincial social and economic indicators for the year 2022, revealed that both women and men in the provinces exhibit similar tendencies towards settling in STEM fields. The preference for STEM fields is lower in the eastern regions, while more pronounced in coastal and industrialized cities. The findings indicate a positive correlation with per capita gross domestic product, the number of teachers in higher education institutes, central government budget expenditure, and the population ratio in the province. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much of the gender gap literature focuses on women's greater average liberalism relative to men. This approach masks considerable heterogeneity in political identity and behavior among women based on race, class, and other key socio-demographic characteristics. In the 2016 Presidential contest, political divisions among women were evident in exit polling, which demonstrated that a majority of white women voted for Donald Trump. This was not an anomaly but reflects a more long-standing distinction between white women and women of other racial and ethnic identifications. In this paper, we draw on intersectionality and system justification theory as frameworks for exploring the distinctive political behavior of white women. Using data from the 2012 and 2016 American National Election Studies, we evaluate the factors that attracted white women voters to the GOP and kept them in the fold in spite of expectations that sexism in the campaign would drive women away from the party during the 2016 Presidential race. Our analyses show that many white women endorse sexist beliefs, and that these beliefs were strong determinants of their vote choice in 2016, more so than in 2012. Our findings also point to important divisions among white women based on educational attainment and household income in terms of both the endorsement of sexism and vote choice. These results shed new light on white women's political behavior and qualify the existing gender gap literature in important ways, offering new insights into the ways whiteness, gender, and class intersect to shape political behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Programming is a valuable skill in the labor market, making the underrepresentation of women in computing an increasingly important issue. Online question and answer platforms serve a dual purpose in this field: they form a body of knowledge useful as a reference and learning tool, and they provide opportunities for individuals to demonstrate credible, verifiable expertise. Issues, such as male-oriented site design or overrepresentation of men among the site's elite may therefore compound the issue of women's underrepresentation in IT. In this paper we audit the differences in behavior and outcomes between men and women on Stack Overflow, the most popular of these Q&A sites. We observe significant differences in how men and women participate in the platform and how successful they are. For example, the average woman has roughly half of the reputation points, the primary measure of success on the site, of the average man. Using an Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition, an econometric technique commonly applied to analyze differences in wages between groups, we find that most of the gap in success between men and women can be explained by differences in their activity on the site and differences in how these activities are rewarded. Specifically, 1) men give more answers than women and 2) are rewarded more for their answers on average, even when controlling for possible confounders such as tenure or buy-in to the site. Women ask more questions and gain more reward per question. We conclude with a hypothetical redesign of the site's scoring system based on these behavioral differences, cutting the reputation gap in half. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper concerns the gender gap in pursuing mathematics at high stakes matriculation exams in Poland. Results of the optional Extended Exam in Mathematics (EEM) serve as the main criterion in entering tertiary education in majority of technical and engineering majors and, therefore, the exam works as an important filter for future career paths. We investigate whether the wide, gross difference between men and women in the propensity to take EEM can be mostly explained by an underlying skill difference, school effects, or other non-cognitive factors. We also test a skill immunization hypothesis which predicts that the gender gap declines at higher levels of mathematical skill. For those purposes we use official data from the 2016 matriculation exams covering the complete cohort of a quarter of a million students in more than 5000 schools. The results show that with skill and school effects roughly held constant, women are still much less likely to take EEM and the gender gap does not narrow on the upper tail of performance in mathematics. Furthermore, higher verbal skill draws women away from pursuing mathematics more strongly than it draws away men. These combined results imply that non-cognitive factors play a key role in self-selection processes and that STEM majors are at higher risk of losing mathematically gifted women than mathematically gifted men. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite broad progress in closing many dimensions of the gender gap around the globe, recent research has shown that traditional gender roles can still exert a large influence on female labor force participation, even in developed economies. This paper empirically analyzes the role of culture in determining the labor market engagement of women within the context of collective models of household decision making. In particular, we use the epidemiological approach to study the relationship between gender in language and labor market participation among married female immigrants to the U.S. We show that the presence of gender in language can act as a marker for culturally acquired gender roles and that these roles are important determinants of household labor allocations. Female immigrants who speak a language with sex-based grammatical rules exhibit lower labor force participation, hours worked, and weeks worked. Our strategy of isolating one component of culture reveals that roughly two thirds of this relationship can be explained by correlated cultural factors, including the role of bargaining power in the household, and the impact of ethnic enclaves and that at most one third is potentially explained by language having a causal impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the average gender gap in pensions is quite well documented, gender differences in the distribution of pensions have rarely been explored. We show in this paper that pension dispersion is very similar for men and women within the French pension system of a given sector (public or private). Gender differences are less marked among retired civil servants than among former private sector employees. However, the determinants of these inequalities are not the same for men and women. Using a regression-based decomposition of the Gini coefficient, we find that pension dispersion is mostly due to dispersion of the reference wage for all retirees but gender differences exist. For women, in particular, pension dispersion is also due to the dispersion in contribution periods. We also decompose the Gini coefficient by source of pension to measure the impact of institutional rules (minimum pensions, survivor’s pension) on the extent of pension inequality. Unexpectedly, we find that the impact of minimum pensions is limited, although slightly larger for civil servants than for private-sector employees. Survivor’s pension schemes, on the other hand, contribute positively to pension dispersion among retired women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how unemployment can be measured in a normative fashion - taking into account the mean and inequality of spell lengths - and how the extent of unemployment can be estimated from cross section data of the type found in labour force surveys. The issue is not straightforward since in these surveys completed durations of unemployed individuals are not observed yet they constitute the basis for calculating the kind of index that has been proposed to measure the extent of unemployment in a way that goes beyond the unemployment rate. The index proposed by Shorrocks has robust normative foundations and has an equivalent representation in terms of average complete duration and the density of completed durations. Building upon earlier work applied in the United States for estimating the average completed duration, we present a method that enables the index to be calculated based on an estimate of the density of completed durations. The approach is illustrated in the context of comparing male-female unemployment differences in France, where historically female unemployment has been higher than that of males. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In most developed economies there exist a clear gap between men and women in terms of prevalence of entrepreneurial activity. The gender gap can be traced back to the general perceptions of gender in society, where entrepreneurial venturing is culturally defined as a masculine activity. In this paper, we analyse how such gendered norms are brought into Triple Helix innovation system models, and identify roles and challenges of NGOs in the alternative conceptualization of Quadruple Helix. Based on an exploratory case study of a Quadruple Helix innovation system project in the tourism industry, we find that NGOs may fill four roles in bridging the gender gap: (1) collaborative platforms for women-led SMEs, (2) legitimating and linking women-led SMEs to governmental and academic actors, (3) developing competences and process innovations related to entrepreneurial venturing outside traditional Triple Helix constellations and (4) carrying individual and societal aspects of entrepreneuring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To measure the adequacy of pension systems in the world, one of the most commonly used indicators is the Replacement Rate. Our work is based on the statement that this indicator is imperfect itself to measure adequacy because it does not collect the multiple dimensions that it involves while being a static measurement. Consequently and based on the data provided by “The 2015 Pension Adequacy Report: current and future income adequacy in old age in the European Union” of the European Commission, in this paper we select a set of variables that are considered representative to measure the adequacy of pension systems from a dynamic and multidimensional perspective, and based on them, a synthetic adequacy indicator is developed. This indicator aims to compare European pension systems from the adequacy objective and to carry out continuous monitoring of the effects that the reform processes may have on the adequacy of pensions. The analysis is completed with the calculation of a gender indicator on pension adequacy for the European Union (EU-28) which identifies the still existing gap between men and women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we aim to understand if gender makes a difference in the path to promotion to full professor in Italian universities, drawing on data from 2013 to 2016. The new promotion system pursuant Gelmini Law (210/2010) in Italy implies to go through two steps. First, they have to obtain the national ASN system (fit-for-the-role national filter), based on merit measured via bibliometric and non-bibliometric indicators. This step does not mean to get a position, it only means to be able to apply for it at institutional level. We believe that discrimination based on gender may happen especially at institutional level as in comparison to ASN there is less transparency and more autonomy at institutional level. It is also hypothesised that discrimination based on gender may differ according to the percentage of women already at full professor rank by disciplinary field. We investigate gender inequality using a binary variable (promoted or not promoted along 2013 until 2016) controlling by scientific productivity, normalised number of available vacancies, result of national research evaluation (VQR—department of candidate’s affiliation), age, current rank-and-file position. Multilevel logistic regression demonstrates that among those who obtained the ASN and at parity of other conditions, men have around 24% more probability to be promoted at parity of scientific production, which reveals a relevant gender discrimination. Our findings have implications on theory about inequality regimes and might serve to reflect on how to improve practices at institutional level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]