How (Not) to Make Women Work?

How (Not) to Make Women Work?Evidence from Transition Countries

Karolina Goraus Joanna Tyrowicz Lucas van der Velde

Faculty of Economic SciencesUniversity of Warsaw

25th IAFFE Annual ConferenceGalway, 25 June 2016

How (Not) to Make Women Work?

Outline

1 Motivation

2 Data

3 Results

4 Conclusions

How (Not) to Make Women Work?

Motivation

Motivation

Literature emhasized substatial drop of women’s employment ratesin the process of transition (Brainerd 2000, Hunt 2002, Blau andKahn 2003)

women men

How (Not) to Make Women Work?

Motivation

Ratio of employment rates (women to men) increasingmuch less in transition countries

Time effects estimates in regressions with country fixed effects

How (Not) to Make Women Work?

Motivation

Questions

What factors stand behind those changes in women’semployment rates? What is the role of unemployment?

How the employment rates evolved for different cohorts?

What was the evolution of (adjusted) gender gaps inemployment rates? Did it differ between cohorts?

What was the role of the opportunity cost of working(increasing tertiary schooling attendance vs. decreasing accessto child care facilities)?

How (Not) to Make Women Work?

Data

Varius sources of micro-level data

National censuses (acquired from Integrated Public UseMicrodata Series International)

International Social Survey Program

Living Standard Measurement Surveys of The World Bank

National Labor Force Surveys

European Union Labor Force Survey

European Community Household Panel

Life in Transition Survey

How (Not) to Make Women Work?

Data

Data on transition countries

Country LFS EU LFS Census LSMS ISSP LiTS

Albania 2002-2005 1989-2006Armenia 2001 1989-2006Azerbaijan 1995 1989-2006Belarus 2008-2010 1999 1989-2006Bosnia & Herz. 2001-2004 1989-2006Bulgaria 1995-2012 2000-2012 1995-97, 2001-03 1993-1995 1989-2006Croatia 1996-2012 1989-2006Czech Republic 1998-2012 1993-1995 1989-2006Estonia 1995-2012 1997-2012 1992-1995 1989-2006FYR Macedonia 1989-2006Georgia 1989-2006Hungary 1997-2012 1990, 2001 1989-1995 1989-2006Kazakhstan 1989-2006Kyrgyzstan 1993, 1996-1998 1989-2006Latvia 1998-2012 1995 1989-2006Lithuania 1998-2012 1995 1989-2006Moldova 1989-2006Montenegro 1989-2006Poland 1995-2012 1997-2012 1991-1995 1989-2006Romania 1995-2012 1997-2012 1977, 1992, 2002 1989-2006Russia 1991-1995 1989-2006Serbia 2002-2004, 2007 1989-2006Slovakia 1998-2012 1995 1989-2006Slovenia 1996-2012 2002 1991-1995 1989-2006Tajikistan 1999, 2003, 2009 1989-2006Ukraine 1989-2006Uzbekistan 1989-2006

How (Not) to Make Women Work?

Data

Data on benchmark countries

Country EU LFS ECHP ISSP

Austria 1995-2012 1995-2001 1989-1995Belgium 1992-2012 1994-2001Denmark 1992-2012 1994-2001Finland 1995-2012 1996-2001France 1993-2012 1994-2001Germany 2002-2012 1994-2001 1989-1995Greece 1992-2012 1994-2001Ireland 1999-2012 1994-2001 1989-1995Italy 1992-2012 1994-2001 1989-1995Netherlands 1996-2012 1994-2001Norway 1996-2012 1989-1995Portugal 1992-2012 1994-2001Spain 1992-2012 1994-2001 1993-1995Sweden 1995-2012 1997-2001 1994-1995Switzerland 1996-2012UK 1992-2012 1994-2001

How (Not) to Make Women Work?

Data

Employment rate of women - time trend in OECD data

Time trends All countries Transition countriesTime 0.40*** 0.55*** 0.13*** -0.88***

(0.02) (0.08) (0.03) (0.13)Time squared -0.01* 0.03***

(0.00) (0.00)Constant 51.93*** 51.18*** 52.62*** 58.93***

(0.31) (0.50) (0.55) (0.91)No of observations 629 629 211 211R2 0.41 0.41 0.07 0.30Number of countries 29 29 12 12

Employment rate of women - time trend in our data (replication)

Time trends All countries Transition countriesTime 0.38*** 0.45*** 0.11** 0.15

(0.03) (0.12) (0.05) (0.14)Time squared -0.00 -0.00

(0.00) (0.00)Constant 54.02*** 53.66*** 53.74*** 53.54***

(3.11) (3.16) (2.85) (2.92)No of observations 901 901 422 422R2 0.87 0.87 0.84 0.84Number of countries 46 46 27 27

How (Not) to Make Women Work?

Results

Questions

What factors stand behind those changes in women’semployment rates? What is the role of unemployment?

How the employment rates evolved for different cohorts?

How (Not) to Make Women Work?

Results

Employment rate of women and overall unemployment rate

Employment rate of women (standardized) ILO OECD EUROSTATUnemployment rate (standardized) -0.5760*** -0.5684*** -0.4774***

(0.0550) (0.0304) (0.0428)Transition country dummy 0.3316** 0.0689 -0.1694**

(0.1513) (0.0746) (0.0715)Transition x unemployment rate 0.3798** 0.2293*** 0.2139***

(0.1883) (0.0569) (0.0686)Constant -0.1591*** -0.0365 0.0584

(0.0466) (0.0257) (0.0432)No of observations 515 1,338 632R2 0.266 0.310 0.250

How (Not) to Make Women Work?

Results

Women’s employment rates by age

Advanced economies Transition countries

How (Not) to Make Women Work?

Results

Women’s employment rates by age

Transition countries - NMS Transition countries - other

How (Not) to Make Women Work?

Results

Decomposition of changes in female employment rate

How (Not) to Make Women Work?

Results

Questions

What was the evolution of (adjusted) gender gaps inemployment rates? Did it differ between cohorts?

What was the role of the opportunity cost of working(increasing tertiary schooling attendance vs. decreasing accessto child care facilities)?

How (Not) to Make Women Work?

Results

How to measure discrimination?

How (Not) to Make Women Work?

Results

Research method

Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition

yM − yF = βM(xM − xF ) + (βM − βF )xF

Decomposition of Npo

δ = δM + δX + δA + δF

δM - can be explained by differences between matched andunmatched malesδX - can be explained by differences in the distribution ofcharacteristics of males and females over the common supportδA - unexplained part of the gapδF - can be explained by differences between matched andunmatched females

How (Not) to Make Women Work?

Results

Empirical analysis

Two stages

1 Obtaining comparable measures of gender discrimination inemployment rates (∆A) - Npo (2008) decompositions.

one per country-yearseparately for cohorts working under transition and those thatentered after transition (two per country-year)

2 Using gender gap estimates as explained variables, whereascountry-year characteristics as explanatory variables. Identifythe correlates (better yet: determinants) of the starkdifferentials in measured ∆A.

How (Not) to Make Women Work?

Results

Adjusted gender employment gap - time patterns

Calendar years Years from transition(1) (2) (3) (4)

Transition country -0.6922*** -0.2105***(0.0806) (0.0599)

Time -0.0366*** -0.0244*** 0.0152*** -0.0273***(0.0110) (0.0052) (0.0030) (0.0035)

x transition country 0.0586*** 0.0461*** 0.0009 0.0418***(0.0122) (0.0061) (0.0049) (0.0042)

Time2 0.0006* 0.0003 -0.0002*** 0.0001***(0.0004) (0.0002) (0.0000) (0.0000)

x transition country -0.0013*** -0.0009*** -0.0002 -0.0005***(0.0004) (0.0002) (0.0002) (0.0001)

Constant 1.0916*** 0.5734*** 0.6680*** 0.9435***(0.1121) (0.0406) (0.0989) (0.0544)

Country F.E. No Yes No YesObservations 1,184 1,184 1,184 1,184R-squared 0.287 0.754 0.268 0.754

How (Not) to Make Women Work?

Results

Time trend shapes

How (Not) to Make Women Work?

Results

Adjusted gender employment gap - institutional factors

(1) (2) (3) (4)

ln GDP per capita -0.39***(0.0428)

x transition 0.44***(0.032)

Persons with tertiary -1.28***in % of population (0.13)

x transition 1.05***(0.19)

Women with tertiary -1.92***in % tertiary (0.22)

x transition 1.71***(0.24)

Constant 0.31*** 0.73*** 0.64*** 0.97***(0.0489) (0.05) (0.05) (0.09)

Observations 1184 1087 1184 1184R-squared 0.71 0.78 0.73 0.73

How (Not) to Make Women Work?

Results

Adjusted gender employment gap - institutional factors

(5) (6) (7) (8)

% of households with 0.32**small children (0.13)

x transition -0.33(0.22)

Access to earlychildhood facilities

x transition -0.02***(0.004)

% of children inkindergardens

x transition -0.003**(0.001)

Employment rate -2.08***of women (0.11)

x transition 0.88***(0.16)

Constant 0.41*** 0.72*** 0.65*** 1.21***(0.06) (0.10) (0.10) (0.05)

Observations 870 310 327 1184R-squared 0.69 0.64 0.64 0.80

How (Not) to Make Women Work?

Results

Adjusted GEG - cohort effects in transition countries

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

Cohorts working before transition 0.064*** 0.16*** 0.32*** 0.19*** 0.29***(0.01) (0.03) (0.07) (0.03) (0.05)

Persons with tertiary in % of population 0.09(0.16)

x cohorts working before transition -0.56***(0.19)

Women with tertiary education in % tertiary -0.29***(0.08)

x cohorts working before transition -0.52***(0.12)

% of households with small children 0.66***(0.15)

x cohorts working before transition -0.28*(0.16)

Employment rate of women -0.84***(0.10)

x cohorts working before transition -0.50***(0.11)

Constant 0.24** 0.45*** 0.60*** 0.22** 0.81***(0.11) (0.07) (0.08) (0.09) (0.08)

Observations 1352 1352 1352 1233 1352R-squared 0.35 0.36 0.38 0.36 0.45

How (Not) to Make Women Work?

Conclusions

Conclusions

Employment rates evolution in transition countries - lowexplanatory power of unemployment rates, importance of”entries” and ”exits”

Adjusted gaps initially smaller in transition countries, but thenstable

Relation between gender gaps in employment and institutionalfactors less clear for transition countries

Younger cohorts face lower adjusted gaps, institutional factorsplay bigger role for older cohorts

How (Not) to Make Women Work?

Conclusions

Thank you for your attention