Browsing by Subject "Geschlechterforschung"

Now showing 1 - 6 of 6

Are sociocultural factors important for studying a science university major?
(2015) Grossmann, Volker; Osikominu, Aderonke; Osterfeld, Marius
This paper examines the role of the sociocultural background of students for choosing STEM fields in university. We combine rich survey data on university graduates in Switzerland with municipality level information from the census as well as nationwide elections and referenda to characterize a students home environment with respect to religious and political attitudes towards gender equality and science-related issues. Our empirical estimates are based on a structural Roy model which accounts for differences in costs (relative distance to the next technical university) and earnings across majors as well as for selection bias. Our findings suggest that male students from conservative municipalities are more likely to study a STEM field, whereas the sociocultural background plays little role for the major choice of females.
Detailed RIF decomposition with selection : the gender pay gap in Italy
(2017) Töpfer, Marina
In this paper, we estimate the gender pay gap along the wage distribution using a detailed decomposition approach based on unconditional quantile regressions. Non-randomness of the sample leads to biased and inconsistent estimates of the wage equation as well as of the components of the wage gap. Therefore, the method is extended to account for sample selection problems. The decomposition is conducted by using Italian microdata. Accounting for labor market selection may be particularly relevant for Italy given a comparably low female labor market participation rate. The results suggest not only differences in the income gap along the wage distribution (in particular glass ceiling), but also differences in the contribution of selection effects to the pay gap at different quantiles.
Overconfidence and gender differences in wage expectations
(2020) Satlukal, Sascha; Reuter, Mirjam; Pfeifer, Gregor; Osikominu, Aderonke; Briel, Stephanie
We analyze the impact of (over-)confidence on gender differences in expected start-ing salaries using elicited beliefs of prospective university students in Germany. According to our results, female students have lower wage expectations and are less overconfident than their male counterparts. Oaxaca-Blinder decompositions of the mean show that 7.7% of the gender gap in wage expectations is attributable to a higher overconfidence of males. Decompositions of the unconditional quantiles of expected salaries suggest that the contribution of gender differences in confidence to the gender gap is particularly strong at the bottom and top of the wage expectation distribution.
Perceived wages and the gender gap in STEM fields
(2018) Pfeifer, Gregor; Osikominu, Aderonke
We estimate gender differences in elicited wage expectations among German Uni- versity students applying for STEM and non-STEM fields. Descriptively, women expect to earn less than men and also have lower expectations about wages of average graduates across different fields. Using a two-step estimation procedure accounting for self-selection, we find that the gender gap in own expected wages can be explained to the extent of 54-69% by wage expectations for average graduates across different fields. However, gender differences in the wage expectations for average graduates across different fields do not contribute to explaining the gender gap in the choice of STEM majors.
The contribution of female health to economic development
(2016) Prettner, Klaus; Kuhny, Michael; Bloom, David E.
We analyze the economic consequences for less developed countries of investing in female health. We do this through developing and calibrating a novel micro-founded dynamic general equilibrium model in which parents trade off the number of children against investments in their education and in which we allow for health-related gender differences in productivity. We show that better female health speeds up the demographic transition and thereby the take-off toward sustained economic growth. By contrast, male health improvements delay the transition and take-off because ceteris paribus they raise fertility. Investing in female health is therefore a potent lever for promoting development.
The reversal of the gender pay gap among public-contestselected young employees
(2015) Töpfer, Marina; Castagnetti, Carolina; Rosti, Luisa
This paper analyzes the effect of public-contest recruitment on earnings by applying an extended version of the Oaxaca-Blinder model with double selection to microdata on Italy. We find that the gender pay gap vanishes among public-contest selected employees, and even reverses in favor of women (-17.4%) in the young sample. The reversal is because public contests are merit-based and gender-fair screening devices. They are merit-based because selected employees possess higher productive characteristics than unselected ones, both women and men. They are gender-fair because the coefficients component in the Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition is never significant among public-contest recruited employees, either with or without selection. On the contrary, among employees not hired by public contest the gender pay gap is positive and significant (7.6%), and it is entirely due to coefficients, that is to discrimination in the career path.