Periodic Reporting for period 4 - NEWFAMSTRAT (The New Shape of Family-Related Gender Stratification)
Período documentado: 2021-02-01 hasta 2022-01-31
Despite women’s significant increase in educational attainment and employment participation over the past few decades, gender inequality persists in affluent countries. Gender economic inequality is an important societal problem, because it increases the risk of poverty and other vulnerabilities for women as well as children. Indeed, the European Union’s social investment strategy aims to tackle these intra- and inter-generational inequalities because they inhibit economic growth as well as individual quality of life.
Social science research to date, however, has not fully accounted for the inequality between women and men, or exactly why it varies across countries. In addition, researchers as well as policy makers often ignore that both the reasons for family-related inequalities and their relative economic outcomes can differ substantially among women and among men. Gender equality will remain elusive until we fully understand how both between- and within-gender inequalities are configured in modern societies.
The overall objective of the NEWFAMSTRAT project is to fill this void in our understanding through four subprojects, which unpack how both between- and within-gender inequality is configured at multiple levels: individual, couple, organizational, and socio-political. The socio-political context is taken into account by comparing gender dynamics in Britain, Finland, and Germany in four subprojects. The first subproject analyzes British, Finnish, and German panel data to assess how family-related wage effects vary among women and among men. The second subproject explores British and German within-household gender wage gaps, and whether equality in paid and unpaid work is equally “good” for all couples. The third and fourth subprojects explore the role of employers and organizations in structuring gender economic inequality predicted by parenthood. Subproject 3 gathers primary data on the Finnish and UK labor markets to examine gender and skill differences in the impact of parenthood on getting a job. In the fourth subproject, we use Finnish and German linked employee-employer data to assess the role of establishments in configuring gender differences in employment outcomes predicted by parenthood. The organizational research highlights the complex interplay between individual agency and social structure configuring wage inequalities not just between women and men, but among women and among men.
Together these analyses locate the pockets of progress where equality gains continue to be made, as well as where barriers remain and how they differ among women and men in different contexts. The insights are informing not only new theory development, but also better equal opportunity and family policies.
Social science research to date, however, has not fully accounted for the inequality between women and men, or exactly why it varies across countries. In addition, researchers as well as policy makers often ignore that both the reasons for family-related inequalities and their relative economic outcomes can differ substantially among women and among men. Gender equality will remain elusive until we fully understand how both between- and within-gender inequalities are configured in modern societies.
The overall objective of the NEWFAMSTRAT project is to fill this void in our understanding through four subprojects, which unpack how both between- and within-gender inequality is configured at multiple levels: individual, couple, organizational, and socio-political. The socio-political context is taken into account by comparing gender dynamics in Britain, Finland, and Germany in four subprojects. The first subproject analyzes British, Finnish, and German panel data to assess how family-related wage effects vary among women and among men. The second subproject explores British and German within-household gender wage gaps, and whether equality in paid and unpaid work is equally “good” for all couples. The third and fourth subprojects explore the role of employers and organizations in structuring gender economic inequality predicted by parenthood. Subproject 3 gathers primary data on the Finnish and UK labor markets to examine gender and skill differences in the impact of parenthood on getting a job. In the fourth subproject, we use Finnish and German linked employee-employer data to assess the role of establishments in configuring gender differences in employment outcomes predicted by parenthood. The organizational research highlights the complex interplay between individual agency and social structure configuring wage inequalities not just between women and men, but among women and among men.
Together these analyses locate the pockets of progress where equality gains continue to be made, as well as where barriers remain and how they differ among women and men in different contexts. The insights are informing not only new theory development, but also better equal opportunity and family policies.
S1: Cooke and Hook (2018) used unconditional quantile regression (UQR) to estimate how the wage impact of housework differs across US men’s and women’s wage distribution. Icardi, et al (2021) used UQR with fixed effects with group slopes (FEGS) to reveal the importance of selection behind medium- and high-wage Finnish, German and UK fatherhood premiums. Morosow and Cooke (2021) used UQR with FEGS to map Finnish fathers’ wage trajectories after taking father-only leave. In a capstone comparative paper, Cooke et al. (revision under review) assess how the relative gender wage impact of parenthood and discrimination vary across the Finnish, German and UK wage distributions.
S2: Blom and Cooke (under review) use UQR with random effects to assess whether the British household divisions of paid and unpaid work have an incremental wage impact above each partner’s own hours in both types of work. Icardi et al (in process) assess optimality of specialization by comparing the impact of household divisions of paid and unpaid work on divorce risk among low- and highly educated British and German couples.
S3: This subproject assessed gender-parenthood hiring discrimination across skill levels in Finland and the UK using a field experiment (correspondence study). Two sets of comparable fictitious application materials for call center, assistant restaurant manager, and accountant positions were created in each country and validated in labs. Then a total of 1,714 Finnish and 4,524 UK applications were sent in response to employer job ads, spanning pre-pandemic, lockdown, and pandemic but no lockdown periods.
S4: Rare representative linked employee-employer data allowed us to analyze how skill differences in fatherhood premiums are configured in Canadian firms (Cooke and Fuller 2018; Fuller and Cooke 2018); how shared parental status of supervisors and supervisees affects gender-parent differences in the likelihood of training in large German firms (Peters et al., revision requested); and whether motherhood penalties and fatherhood wage premiums vary with the proportion of parents in Finnish firms (Cooke and Hägglund, in process).
Thus far: 42 conferences, workshops and seminar presentations; 12 publications, a further 8 and a monograph in process; a commentary and policy blog.
S2: Blom and Cooke (under review) use UQR with random effects to assess whether the British household divisions of paid and unpaid work have an incremental wage impact above each partner’s own hours in both types of work. Icardi et al (in process) assess optimality of specialization by comparing the impact of household divisions of paid and unpaid work on divorce risk among low- and highly educated British and German couples.
S3: This subproject assessed gender-parenthood hiring discrimination across skill levels in Finland and the UK using a field experiment (correspondence study). Two sets of comparable fictitious application materials for call center, assistant restaurant manager, and accountant positions were created in each country and validated in labs. Then a total of 1,714 Finnish and 4,524 UK applications were sent in response to employer job ads, spanning pre-pandemic, lockdown, and pandemic but no lockdown periods.
S4: Rare representative linked employee-employer data allowed us to analyze how skill differences in fatherhood premiums are configured in Canadian firms (Cooke and Fuller 2018; Fuller and Cooke 2018); how shared parental status of supervisors and supervisees affects gender-parent differences in the likelihood of training in large German firms (Peters et al., revision requested); and whether motherhood penalties and fatherhood wage premiums vary with the proportion of parents in Finnish firms (Cooke and Hägglund, in process).
Thus far: 42 conferences, workshops and seminar presentations; 12 publications, a further 8 and a monograph in process; a commentary and policy blog.
Thus far, the insights beyond the state of the art include:
The capstone paper of S1 (Cooke et al, under review) pushes the state of the art by using the comparative method and differentiating gender wage gaps among parents with those among childless, to adjudicate between productivity and discrimination sources of residual gender gaps across the Finnish, German and UK wage distribuitons. Our unique analytical approach reveals that the parenthood gaps are significantly smaller at the bottom of the private sector wage distribution in the more generous policy contexts primarily because the motherhood penalty is significantly smaller. But the childless gaps indicative of discrimination is also smaller. Parenthood gaps are also smaller across the top of the wage distribution in the most generous policy context, by reducing fatherhood premiums. This is the most robust test of the welfare paradox argument to date and supports the effectiveness of the Nordic Model in reducing gender economic inequalities, albeit in different ways at different wage levels.
The field experiment (S3) pushed the state of the art by being the first two-country comparison of gender-parenthood hiring discrimination across skill levels, and also the first study to assess statistically if employers perceive group differences in productivity variance. The S4 papers analyzing linked employee-employer data led to new theory development on the other ways organizations affect gender parenthood wage gaps. The focus on organizations is important because organizations, not labor markets, set wages. These studies together highlight how the interplay of individual agency and structure configures group wage inequalities among women and men.
The capstone paper of S1 (Cooke et al, under review) pushes the state of the art by using the comparative method and differentiating gender wage gaps among parents with those among childless, to adjudicate between productivity and discrimination sources of residual gender gaps across the Finnish, German and UK wage distribuitons. Our unique analytical approach reveals that the parenthood gaps are significantly smaller at the bottom of the private sector wage distribution in the more generous policy contexts primarily because the motherhood penalty is significantly smaller. But the childless gaps indicative of discrimination is also smaller. Parenthood gaps are also smaller across the top of the wage distribution in the most generous policy context, by reducing fatherhood premiums. This is the most robust test of the welfare paradox argument to date and supports the effectiveness of the Nordic Model in reducing gender economic inequalities, albeit in different ways at different wage levels.
The field experiment (S3) pushed the state of the art by being the first two-country comparison of gender-parenthood hiring discrimination across skill levels, and also the first study to assess statistically if employers perceive group differences in productivity variance. The S4 papers analyzing linked employee-employer data led to new theory development on the other ways organizations affect gender parenthood wage gaps. The focus on organizations is important because organizations, not labor markets, set wages. These studies together highlight how the interplay of individual agency and structure configures group wage inequalities among women and men.