Search Results
Report
Human capital investments and expectations about career and family
This paper studies how individuals believe human capital investments will affect their future career and family life. We conducted a survey of high-ability currently enrolled college students and elicited beliefs about how their choice of college major, and whether to complete their degree at all, would affect a wide array of future events, including future earnings, employment, marriage prospects, potential spousal characteristics, and fertility. We find that students perceive large ?returns" to human capital not only in their own future earnings, but also in a number of other dimensions ...
Journal Article
Parental Participation in a Pandemic Labor Market
Gender gaps in labor market outcomes during the pandemic largely reflect differences in parents’ experiences. Labor force participation fell much less for fathers compared with other men and all women at the onset of the pandemic; the recovery has been more pronounced for men and women without children. Meanwhile, labor force participation among mothers declined with the start of the school year. Evidence suggests flexibility in setting work schedules can offset some of the adverse impact on mothers’ employment, while the ability to work from home does not.
Discussion Paper
The Power of Proximity: How Working beside Colleagues Affects Training and Productivity
Firms remain divided about the value of the office for “office” workers. Some firms think that their employees are more productive when working from home. Others believe that the office is a key place for investing in workers’ skills. In this post, which is based on a recent working paper, we examine whether both sides could be right: Could working in the office facilitate investments in workers’ skills for tomorrow that diminish productivity today?
The “She-Cession” Persists, Especially for Women of Color
During most of the pandemic, women have experienced higher unemployment rates than men. Women of color have been hit particularly hard.
Speech
Opening Remarks: Heterogeneity Blog Series Webinar
Remarks for the Heterogeneity Blog Series Webinar, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, New York City.
Working Paper
Decomposing Gender Differences in Bankcard Credit Limits
Using linked mortgage application and credit bureau data, we document the existence of unconditional and conditional gender gaps in the distribution of total bankcard limits. We estimate that male borrowers have approximately $1,300 higher total bankcard limits than female borrowers. This gap is primarily driven by a large gender gap in the right tail of the limit distribution. At the median and in the left tail of the total limit distribution, women have larger limits than men. Results from a Kitagawa-Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition show that 87 percent of the gap is explained by differences in ...
Report
Gender representation in economics across topics and time: evidence from the NBER
We document the representation of female economists on the conference programs at the NBER Summer Institute from 2001 to 2016. Over the 2013-16 period, women made up 20.6 percent of all authors on scheduled papers. However, there was large dispersion across programs, with the share of female authors ranging from 7.3 percent to 47.7 percent. While the average share of women rose slightly?from 18.5 percent in 2001-04?a persistent gap between the finance, macroeconomics, and microeconomics subfields remains, with women representing 14.4 percent of authors in finance, 16.3 percent of authors in ...
Journal Article
The Unequal Effect of Interest Rates by Race, Gender
Household spending typically falls as interest rates rise, but the responses vary by race and gender. Data show that households with mortgages headed by white women cut their spending on durable goods about a quarter percentage point in the three years following a 1 percentage point increase in interest rates. This is a much larger reduction than for households with mortgages headed by white men or Black men or women. The differences highlight the challenge of understanding how policy interest rate changes affect a diverse population.
COVID-19 and the Great Recession: Market Hours and Home Production across American Households
Women and households with children have been hit harder in this recession than they were in the previous recession.
Taking a Closer Look at Marital Status and the Earnings Gap
Research suggests that married men’s higher income account for a significant portion of the U.S. gender earnings gap. Does this also hold when race is considered?