Productivity, Wages, and Marriage: The Case of Major League Baseball

The effect of marriage on productivity and, consequently, wages has been long debated in economics. A primary explanation for the impact of marriage on wages has been through its impact on productivity, however, there has been no direct evidence for this. In this paper, we aim to fill this gap by directly measuring the impact of marriage on productivity using a sample of professional baseball players from 1871 - 2007. Our results show that only lower ability men see an increase in productivity, though this result is sensitive to the empirical specification and weakly significant. In addition, despite the lack of any effect on productivity, high ability married players earn roughly 16 - 20 percent more than their single counterparts. We discuss possible reasons why employers may favor married men

Comparable Worth in Academia: The Effects on Faculty Salaries of the Sex Composition and Labor-Market Conditions of Academic Disciplines

187 p.Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1993.Comparable worth scholars have identified a bias against work that is typically performed by women, suggesting that the cultural devaluation of women leads to the devaluation of work that women do. Studies have demonstrated that incumbents of jobs held predominantly by women suffer a wage penalty, earning less than those in comparable jobs held primarily by men. This study examines whether similar mechanisms operate within academic labor markets, asking whether increasing proportions of women in academic disciplines depress faculty salaries independent of the effects of labor-market conditions and individual-level salary predictors.The project includes two types of analysis--disciplinary and contextual. In the first, the unit of analysis is the academic discipline. I examined the extent to which the percentage of women in academic disciplines influences the average entry-level salaries of new assistant professors in 1978-79, 1982-83, and 1988-89, net of the effects of labor-market measures (unemployment rate, percentage of qualified workers employed outside academia, and median nonacademic wage). I also assessed the effect on average disciplinary salary of changes in percentage female over time, and examined the possibility of a two-way relationship between percentage female and salary levels. Consistent with a comparable worth perspective, findings reveal a negative (nonlinear) relationship between the percentage of women in academic disciplines and average disciplinary salaries, net of the effects of labor-market measures. In addition, this appears to be a two-way relationship. That is, the percentage of women affects average salaries, but salary levels also influence the proportions of women in academic disciplines.In the second stage of the study, the individual faculty member is the unit of analysis. I applied the contextual variables for disciplines (percentage female and labor-market conditions) to individual-level data to determine whether the sex composition of academic disciplines affects individual faculty salaries over and above the effects of labor-market conditions, sex and other individual-level salary predictors. Findings show that the percentage of women in academic disciplines has a negative effect on individual faculty salaries independent of the effects of labor-market conditions, sex, and an extensive set of other individual-level controls. I conclude that both individual- and disciplinary-level discrimination depress faculty women's salaries.U of I OnlyRestricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETD

Gender and Emotional Labor in Public Organizations: An Empirical Examination of the Link to Performance

Scholars of public organizations have begun to emphasize emotional labor in studies of gender in the workplace, finding that the skills women bring to organizations are often overlooked and undercompensated even though they play a vital role in the organization. Emotional labor is an individual’s effort to present emotions in a way that is desired by the organization. The authors hypothesize that employers with greater emotional labor expectations of their employees will have more effective interactions with clients, better internal relationships, and superior program performance. This article tests the effects of emotional labor in a bureaucratic workforce over time. Multiple regression results show that organizations with more women at the street level have higher overall organizational performance. Additionally, emotional labor contributes to organizational productivity over and above its role in employee turnover and client satisfaction