"Importing Equality or Exporting Jobs?: Competition and Gender Wage and Employment Differentials in U.S. Manufacturing"

This study investigates the impact of increased import competition on gender wage and employment differentials in U.S. manufacturing over the period from 1976 to 1993. Increased import competition is expected to decrease the relative demand for workers in low-wage production occupations and the relative demand for women workers, given the high female share in these occupations. The findings support this hypothesis. Disproportionate job losses for women in low-wage production occupations was associated with rising imports in U.S. manufacturing over this period, and as low-wage women lost their jobs, the average wage of the remaining women in the study increased, thereby narrowing the gender wage gap.

"Time Use of Mothers and Fathers in Hard Times and Better Times: The US Business Cycle of 2003-10"

The US economic crisis and recession of 2007-09 accelerated the convergence of women's and men's employment rates as men experienced disproportionate job losses and women's entry into the labor force gathered pace. Using the American Time Use Survey (ATUS) data for 2003-10, this study examines whether the narrowing gap in paid work over this period was mirrored in unpaid work, personal care, and leisure time. We find that the gender gap in unpaid work followed a U-pattern, narrowing during the recession but widening afterward. Through segregation analysis, we trace this U-pattern to the slow erosion of gender segregation in housework and, through a standard decomposition analysis of time use by employment status, show that this pattern was mainly driven by movement toward gender-equitable unpaid hours of women and men with the same employment status. In addition, gender inequality in leisure time increased over the business cycle.Economics of Gender; Unemployment; Time Use; Economic Crises

Is deindustrialization good for women? Evidence from the United States

The gender wage gap in the United States narrowed considerably throughout the 1980s and then more slowly in the 1990s. Using a decomposition methodology and US Current Population Survey data, this study investigates the impact of deindustrialization's continuing shift in employment away from manufacturing to services on the US gender wage gap between 1990 and 2001. The study finds that the widening of the gender wage gap in the service sector caused a slowdown in the narrowing of the US gender wage gap. Within the service sector, two occupational elements affected the growing gender wage gap: women's entry into traditionally male occupations characterized by high wages and high gender wage differentials that resulted in the relative increase in men's wages compared to women's wages in these occupations.Gender wage gap, deindustrialization, service sector, decomposition techniques, JEL Codes: J16, J31, L80,

Importing Equality or Exporting Jobs?: Competition and Gender Wage and Employment Differentials in U.S. Manufacturing

Gender Wage, Employment, Manufacturing