Estimating gender differences in access to jobs: females trapped at the bottom of the ladder

In this paper, we propose a job assignment model allowing for a gender difference in access to jobs. Males and females compete for the same job positions. They are primarily interested in the best-paid jobs. A structural relationship of the model can be used to empirically recover the probability ratio of females and males getting a given job position. As this ratio is allowed to vary with the rank of jobs in the wage distribution of positions, barriers in females' access to high-paid jobs can be detected and quantiffed. We estimate the gender relative probability of getting any given job position for full-time executives aged 40-45 in the private sector. This is done using an exhaustive French administrative dataset on wage bills. Our results show that the access to any job position is lower for females than for males. Also, females' access decreases with the rank of job positions in the wage distribution, which is consistent with females being faced with more barriers to high-paid jobs than to low-paid jobs. At the bottom of the wage distribution, the probability of females getting a job is 12% lower than the probability of males. The difference in probability is far larger at the top of the wage distribution and climbs to 50%.gender ; discrimination ; wages ; quantiles ; job assignment model ; glass ceiling

Child-related career interruptions and the gender wage gap in France

In this paper, we investigate the extent of the effects of children and child-related time out of the labor market on the gender wage gap in France, with special attention to its impact on the accumulation and composition of human capital. Measuring this impact requires detailed information on the individuals‟ activity history that is rarely available. The French survey "Families and Employers" (Ined, 2005) provides this information. We first look at men's and women's wage determinants, including the penalties associated with unemployment and time out of the labor market. We find that having controlled for the jobs' characteristics and selection into employment, there is a penalty attached to child-related time out of the labor market, which affects only women. We do not find any direct negative impact of children on women's current hourly wage at the mean. Then for a sub-sample of men and women aged from 39 to 49, we use a decomposition of the gender wage gap into an "interruption" wage gap between women and a gender wage gap between women who have never taken child-related time out and men; we find that the wage gap between men and women who have never interrupted their participation in the labor force is essentially "unexplained", while the wage gap between women who have had child-related interruptions and women who have not is essentially "explained".Wages, Human capital, Children, Family pay gap, Statistical discrimination, Wage gap decomposition

Do women choose to work in the public and nonprofit sectors? Empirical evidence from a French national survey

Women are over-represented in public and nonprofit sector jobs. This article aims to bring to light the reasons behind that phenomenon. In particular, do women choose these sectors because they offer female employees specific advantages that are absent from the private sector? The feminization of the public sector can be explained by the fact that women obtain a higher wage gain from choosing this sector than men do. However, this is not true for the nonprofit sector. Working hours - in the form of part-time work in the nonprofit sector and total hours worked in the public sector - appear to play an important role in the over-representation of women in these two sectors. On the other hand, the idea that women are more attracted to the social objectives pursued by public and nonprofit organizations does not appear to play any part. “Family-friendly” measures - aiming to reconcile the demands of family life and professional life - appear to attract women to the public sector, but it is difficult to interpret their influence, because it is impossible to distinguish between the attractiveness of these measures and the result of professional segregation in the public sector.women’ employment choices; nonprofit sector; public sector; firms family-friendly policies

Can the Gender Wage Go Further Down?

In 2002 in France, the differential between the average monthly wage of women and men was 25.3%, hardly one point of percentage less than in 1990, and the components of the gap have remained steady: for any given year, 75% of the wage differential results from differences in jobs structures, and firstly the difference in working hours. The persistence of the gap and its enduring composition can be considered as surprising: women have now on average a higher level of education than men, and the law prohibits discrimination and promotes professional equality. Furthermore, during the period studied, a reform of the French child-raising allowance (APE) and the reform of the 35-hours could well have impacted on the wage differential. However trends or reforms seem to have had very little effect on the differences in jobs, positions, sectors and working hours, which are the principal source of the gender wage differential and the main reason for its persistence.Wages, Gender Wage Gaps, Decomposition Method

Do women choose to work in the public and nonprofit sectors? Empirical evidence from a French national survey

Women are over-represented in public and nonprofit sector jobs. This article aims to bring to light the reasons behind that phenomenon. In particular, do women choose these sectors because they offer female employees specific advantages that are absent from the private sector? The feminization of the public sector can be explained by the fact that women obtain a higher wage gain from choosing this sector than men do. However, this is not true for the nonprofit sector. Working hours - in the form of part-time work in the nonprofit sector and total hours worked in the public sector - appear to play an important role in the over-representation of women in these two sectors. On the other hand, the idea that women are more attracted to the social objectives pursued by public and nonprofit organizations does not appear to play any part. “Family-friendly” measures - aiming to reconcile the demands of family life and professional life - appear to attract women to the public sector, but it is difficult to interpret their influence, because it is impossible to distinguish between the attractiveness of these measures and the result of professional segregation in the public sector

Do women choose to work in the public and nonprofit sectors? Empirical evidence from a French national survey

Women are over-represented in public and nonprofit sector jobs. This article aims to bring to light the reasons behind that phenomenon. In particular, do women choose these sectors because they offer female employees specific advantages that are absent from the private sector? The feminization of the public sector can be explained by the fact that women obtain a higher wage gain from choosing this sector than men do. However, this is not true for the nonprofit sector. Working hours - in the form of part-time work in the nonprofit sector and total hours worked in the public sector - appear to play an important role in the over-representation of women in these two sectors. On the other hand, the idea that women are more attracted to the social objectives pursued by public and nonprofit organizations does not appear to play any part. “Family-friendly” measures - aiming to reconcile the demands of family life and professional life - appear to attract women to the public sector, but it is difficult to interpret their influence, because it is impossible to distinguish between the attractiveness of these measures and the result of professional segregation in the public sector

MANTILLA CANARIA [Material gráfico]

ADQUIRIDA POR EL COLECCIONISTA EN LAS PALMAS DE GRAN CANARIAFOTO DE CHICA DE ESPALDAS CON MANTILLA CANARIACopia digital. Madrid : Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte. Subdirección General de Coordinación Bibliotecaria, 201

Hundreds of variants clustered in genomic loci and biological pathways affect human height

Most common human traits and diseases have a polygenic pattern of inheritance: DNA sequence variants at many genetic loci influence the phenotype. Genome-wide association (GWA) studies have identified more than 600 variants associated with human traits, but these typically explain small fractions of phenotypic variation, raising questions about the use of further studies. Here, using 183,727 individuals, we show that hundreds of genetic variants, in at least 180 loci, influence adult height, a highly heritable and classic polygenic trait. The large number of loci reveals patterns with important implications for genetic studies of common human diseases and traits. First, the 180 loci are not random, but instead are enriched for genes that are connected in biological pathways (P = 0.016) and that underlie skeletal growth defects (P < 0.001). Second, the likely causal gene is often located near the most strongly associated variant: in 13 of 21 loci containing a known skeletal growth gene, that gene was closest to the associated variant. Third, at least 19 loci have multiple independently associated variants, suggesting that allelic heterogeneity is a frequent feature of polygenic traits, that comprehensive explorations of already-discovered loci should discover additional variants and that an appreciable fraction of associated loci may have been identified. Fourth, associated variants are enriched for likely functional effects on genes, being over-represented among variants that alter amino-acid structure of proteins and expression levels of nearby genes. Our data explain approximately 10% of the phenotypic variation in height, and we estimate that unidentified common variants of similar effect sizes would increase this figure to approximately 16% of phenotypic variation (approximately 20% of heritable variation). Although additional approaches are needed to dissect the genetic architecture of polygenic human traits fully, our findings indicate that GWA studies can identify large numbers of loci that implicate biologically relevant genes and pathways.