Computer use and earnings in Britain

This paper estimates various models of the effect of computer use on earnings using recent NCDS data. The cross-section estimates are large and significant while the standard fixed effects estimates are small or insignificant. The panel estimates change considerably once we allow the coefficients to differ across individuals. Indeed, conditional on assumptions about when individuals use computers, conventional panel estimates may not identify the crucial parameters and cross-sectional methods may be needed. We conclude that there was a premium associated with computer use for some individuals in the UK which we attribute to better capital equipment.earnings, ICT, computers

Understanding the Effects of Sibling Composition on Child

This paper argues that spacing between consecutive births is an important aspect of competition among siblings for survival. Since parents simultaneously choose their desired values of birth spacing and the amount of time and other resources invested in children (which in turn affect child mortality), we use a maximum likelihood method to model birth spacing and child mortality as correlated processes while also allowing for family specific unobserved heterogeneity. Our estimates show that the chances of survival in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal increase with an increase in birth interval (prior and/or posterior) and decrease with the birth of a twin.Sibling competition, Birth spacing, Child mortality, Gender differences, Unobserved heterogeneity, Endogeneity bias

Unpacking Unequal Pay Between Men and Women Across Cohort and Lifecycle

This paper analyses the pay gap between men and women in the two British birth cohort studies using the new data collected in 2000 when their subjects had reached the ages of 30 and 42 respectively. The paper also includes new analysis of improved data on the 1958 cohort at 33 in 1991, and a comparison with our earlier analyses of the 1946 cohort at 32 in 1978 and the 1958 cohort at 33 in 1991. The analysis is of hourly earnings in full-time jobs, where the impact of the Equal Pay Act might be expected to be more complete, given the lack of male comparators in the extensive but low paid part-time employment sector for women. We decompose the wage gap at each age, and the change in the components of the average wage gap over time. We also examine the distribution of estimated gender premia across our samples and relate them to the wage level. For people in their early thirties, the crude wage gap closed between 1978 and 2000, but this was mainly due to improved human capital characteristics of the women in full-time employment at that stage of their lives. Unequal treatment also fell, but not by much. When following the 1958 cohort from age 33 to age 42 in 2000, men’s real wages rose more than women’s. The increased gap was roughly equally due to widening differentials in characteristics and deteriorating rates of remuneration for women entering middle age. Although the 42 year-old employees included women with less exceptional qualifications, who had returned to the labour force with interrupted employment histories, women who had been relatively continuously in employment also experienced the rising gender penalty over time

The Impact of the Public Sector Pay Review Bodies in the UK

This paper examines the impact of the Pay Review Bodies (PRBs) on the public sector pay of their remit groups. We compare the real weekly earnings of groups of workers in occupations covered by PRBs, in the remainder of the public sector and in the private sector using LFS data from 1993 to 2006 for 10 occupational sub-groups. We describe how the pattern of relative occupational pay varies over time and by gender and can be interpreted as compensating pay differentials. In several public sector occupations, men incur a much larger earnings penalty than women. Our difference- in-difference impact estimation method relies on comparison of the difference between any specific PRB group and other (non-PRB) public sector workers over time. For the most part we find that the PRBs have had little or no practical impact on earnings over and above that of comparable public sector workers not covered by the PRBs.Public Sector Pay Review Bodies

More or less unequal? Evidence on the pay of men and women from the British Birth Cohort Studies

Gender pay differences are not merely a problem for women returning to work and part-time employees, but also for those in full-time, continuous careers. In data from cohort studies, the gender wage gap for full time workers in their early thirties fell between 1978 and 2000. This equalisation reflects improvements in women’s education and experience, rather more than a move towards equal treatment. Indeed, had the typical woman full-timer in 2000 been paid at men’s rates she would have actually received higher pay than the typical man. Women in one cohort faced increasing inequality as they aged from 33 to 42, partly due to differences in qualifications and experience. However, unequal treatment also rose among women employed full-time at both ages

Understanding the effects of siblings on child mortality: evidence from India

Given the intrinsically sequential nature of child birth, timing of a child’s birth has consequences not only for itself, but also for the older and younger siblings. The paper thus argues that prior and posterior spacing between consecutive siblings are important measures of the intensity of competition among siblings for limited parental resources. While the available estimates of child mortality tend to ignore this simultaneity bias, we use a correlated recursive model of prior and posterior spacing and child mortality to correct it. There is evidence that uncorrected estimates underestimate the effects of prior and posterior spacing on child mortality

Use IT or Lose IT? The Impact of Computers on Earnings

The extent to which the impact of computer skills depends on how computers are used is investigated using British data from an establishment survey, cohort studies and the European E-Living survey. We examine the importance of activity and frequency of use in these various data sources. We find that the impact on earnings depends on which cohort of workers is examined and that there are differences over time. The regression results show that the use of computers for internet access and for email is positively significant across all of our datasets, although there are differences in the size of the effects between men and women.ICT

To What Extent was the Relationship Between Feminists and the Eugenics Movement a ‘Marriage of Convenience’ in the Interwar Years?

This article extends and questions historians’ recent inquiry into feminists’ relationship with the eugenics movement. It compares the work of three leading feminists – Eleanor Rathbone, Eva Hubback and Mary Stocks – with that of the Eugenics Society by focusing on the interwar campaigns of family allowances, birth control and voluntary sterilisation. Drawing upon National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship annual reports, personal correspondence and published articles, it challenges historians’ assumptions that Rathbone and Stocks courted eugenic support; instead it exposes the pragmatism of an ailing eugenics movement. However, by demonstrating Hubback’s ardent eugenic commitment, it also provides new and further evidence for the weakness of feminism during this period