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Journal Article
Gender Composition of the Boards of Directors of the Regional Federal Reserve Banks
Women have traditionally been underrepresented among governors of the Federal Reserve Board and among presidents of the regional Federal Reserve Banks. This lack of diversity may limit the representation of the interests of women, leave out valuable talent, and affect group dynamics and decision-making. These concerns are also relevant for the members of the Boards of Directors of the twelve regional banks of the Federal Reserve System. This article presents and analyzes hand-collected data on female representation on these twelve boards. Since 1977, when the first five women began serving as ...
Working Paper
Health Inequality and Economic Disparities by Race, Ethnicity, and Gender
We measure health inequality during middle and old age by race, ethnicity, and gender and evaluate the extent to which it can explain inequalities in other key economic outcomes using the Health and Retirement Study data set. Our main measure of health is frailty, which is the fraction of one’s possible health deficits and is related to biological age. We find staggering health inequality: At age 55, Black men and women have the frailty, or biological age, of White men and women 13 and 20 years older, respectively, while Hispanic men and women exhibit frailty akin to White men and women 5 ...
Working Paper
Decomposing Gender Differences in Bankcard Credit Limits
In this paper, we examine if there are gender differences in total bankcard limits by utilizing a data set that links mortgage applicant information with individual-level credit bureau data from 2006 - 2016. We document that after controlling for credit score, income, and demographic characteristics, male borrowers on average have higher total bankcard limits than female borrowers. Using a standard Kitagawa-Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition, we find that 87 percent of the gap is explained by differences in the effect of observed characteristics between male and female borrowers, while ...
Working Paper
Manning Up and Womaning Down: How Husbands and Wives Report Earnings When She Earns More
To infer social preferences regarding the relative earnings of spouses, we use measurement error in the earnings reported for married couples in the Current Population Survey. We compare the earnings reported for husbands and wives in the survey with their “true” earnings as reported by their employers to tax authorities. Compared with couples where the wife earns just less than the husband, those where she earns just more are 15.9 percentage points more likely to under-report her relative earnings. This pattern reflects the reporting behavior of both husbands and wives and is consistent ...
Working Paper
Why Is Mommy So Stressed? Estimating the Immediate Impact of the COVID-19 Shock on Parental Attachment to the Labor Market and the Double Bind of Mothers
I examine the impact of the COVID-19 shock on parents’ labor supply during the initial stages of the pandemic. Using difference-in-difference approaches and monthly panel data from the Current Population Survey (CPS), I compare labor market attachment, non-work activity, hours worked, and earnings and wages of those in areas with early school closures and stay-in-place orders with those in areas with delayed or no pandemic closures. While there was no immediate impact on detachment or unemployment, mothers with jobs in early closure states were 53.2 percent more likely than mothers in late ...
Working Paper
Cultural Change Through Writing Style: Gendered Pronoun Use in the Economics Profession
Through their writing, people often reflect their values. Since the 1970s, academic economists have gradually changed their third-person pronoun choices, from using the masculine form to incorporating feminine and plural forms. We document this transition empirically, and examine the role of social interactions among economists in driving the cultural change reflected in these choices. Our analysis relies on a model where writing style depends on the influence of academic peers, the implicit negotiation between co-authors, and individual authors’ preferences for expressing gender equality ...
Working Paper
Parenthood and Labor Market Outcomes: Evidence from Chile
Throughout the pandemic Chile implemented a series of public health mandates restricting mobility and high social-contact activities with a goal of reducing disease spread. In this paper, we study the impact of one of these policies - central planner variation in school re-openings on labor market outcomes. We examine how access to supervised care for children in school affected mothers’ labor supply and show that mothers increased labor force participation anywhere from 2.6 to 21.0 percentage points (ppts) as schools re-opened. As mothers came back to the labor force, however, unplanned ...
Working Paper
Who Cares? Paid Sick Leave Mandates, Care-Giving, and Gender
We use employment data from the Current Population Survey to assess the efficacy of state-mandated paid sick leave policies on leave-taking behavior with a focus on any variation by gender. We find that these policies increase leave taking for care-giving for men by 10-20%, and this effect is strongest for men with young children in the household. In addition, we find that Hispanic men and men without a bachelor’s degree, who historically have had low access to paid sick leave, are 20–25% more likely to take care-giving leave. By comparison, we do not find evidence that these policies ...
Working Paper
Meritocracy across Countries
Are labor markets in higher-income countries more meritocratic, in the sense that worker-job matching is based on skills rather than idiosyncratic attributes unrelated to productivity? If so, why? And what are the aggregate consequences? Using internationally comparable data on worker skills and job skill requirements of over 120,000 individuals across 28 countries, we document that workers’ skills better match their jobs’ skill requirements in higher-income countries. To quantify the role of worker-job matching in development accounting, we build an equilibrium matching model that allows ...
Working Paper
The Parenthood Gap: Firms and Earnings Inequality After Kids
We document the dynamics of career paths around parenthood, capturing worker advancement within firms and across firms of differing pay. Using a new linkage between administrative data on U.S. workers’ fertility and labor-market histories, we show that the parental earnings gap is partly explained by mothers transitioning to lower-paying firms. Firm downgrading is driven by parents who take an extended absence from the labor force. Mothers who move to lower-paying firms see improved job amenities, but less generous fringe benefits. The firm’s contribution to the parental earnings gap ...