05.10.2016 • 42/2016
International young researchers at IWH
Scientific insights do not stop at national borders and have to be equally accessible for women and men. “Whoever wants to do world-class research has to look beyond his own nose”, says Reint E. Gropp, president of the Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH) – Member of the Leibniz Association. He himself received his PhD and did research in the US for several years.
Reint E. Gropp
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Firm Leadership and the Gender Pay Gap: Do Active Owners Discriminate more than Hired Managers?
Boris Hirsch, Steffen Müller
Journal for Labour Market Research,
No. 1,
2014
Abstract
Using a large linked employer–employee data set for Germany, we investigate differences in the unexplained gender pay gap between owner-run and manager-run firms. We hypothesise that owner-managers and hired managers differ in their discretion to engage in profit-reducing taste discrimination against women, which would translate into different pay gaps depending on leadership regime. We find that unexplained gaps are significantly higher in owner-run firms, both statistically and economically. Yet, scrutinising these results by restricting our analysis to firms that only differ in leadership regime, this substantial difference disappears. Therefore, our findings do not support that active owners are more discriminatory per se.
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The Effect of Housework on Wages in Germany: No Impact at all
Boris Hirsch, Thorsten Konietzko
Journal for Labour Market Research,
No. 2,
2013
Abstract
This paper presents evidence on the impact of hours spent on housework activities on individuals’ wages for Germany using data from both the German Socio-Economic Panel and the German Time Use Survey. In contrast to most of the international literature, we find no negative effect of housework on wages. This holds for men and women, for married and single individuals, and for part-time and full-time workers both in West and East Germany. Our insights do not change when we distinguish different types of housework activities or address the endogeneity of housework in our wage regressions by using instrumental variables estimators.
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Monopsonistic Labour Markets and the Gender Pay Gap: Theory and Empirical Evidence
Boris Hirsch
Lecture Notes in Economics and Mathematical Systems,
No. 639,
2010
Abstract
This book investigates models of spatial and dynamic monopsony and their application to the persistent empirical regularity of the gender pay gap. Theoretically, the main conclusion is that employers possess more monopsony power over their female employees if women are less driven by pecuniary considerations in their choice of employers than men. Employers may exploit this to increase their profits at the detriment of women’s wages. Empirically, it is indeed found that women’s labour supply to the firm is less wage-elastic than men’s and that at least a third of the gender pay gap in the data investigated may result from employers engaging in monopsonistic discrimination. Therefore, a monopsonistic approach to gender discrimination in the labour market clearly contributes to the economic understanding of the gender pay gap. It not only provides an intuitively appealing explanation of the gap from standard economic reasoning, but it is also corroborated by empirical observation.
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Are there Gender-specific Preferences for Location Factors? A Grouped Conditional Logit-model of Interregional Migration Flows in Germany
Lutz Schneider, Alexander Kubis
IWH Discussion Papers,
No. 5,
2009
Abstract
The article analyses the question whether women and men differ in their tastes for location factors. The question is answered by quantifying the impact of location characteristics on interregional migration flows across Germany. The analysis is based on a grouped conditional logit approach. We augment the framework by controlling for violation of the independence of irrelevant alternatives assumption and for overdispersion. As a result, we find no differences in terms of direction of impact. However, the regressions confirm gender differences in terms of intensity, particularly regarding regional wage levels and the availability of educational institutions.
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Parenting Benefit – A New Risk for Companies
Nicole Nulsch, Henry Dannenberg
Wirtschaft im Wandel,
No. 7,
2008
Abstract
One of the aims of the new parenting benefit – introduced by the German government in January 2007 – is to motivate fathers to take parental leave in order to take care of their young children. Until now, the effects of the parenting benefit have been discussed predominantly from the viewpoint of family policy. In contrast, this paper analyses how companies are affected by the new law. In 2007, the number of fathers who stayed at home to spend more time with their children increased significantly. More than half of the working applicants were already fathers. In the past, it was easy for companies to reduce their risk of losing an important employee due to the birth of a child as companies rather hired men than women. But this strategy will be less important in the future. It is expected that the risk-environment of companies will change because of a larger group of fathers taking parental leave. Such a changed risk-environment could increase the career opportunities of women and might reduce the gender wage gap. However, it is also expected that the overall risk of companies increases. Assumed that companies need equity to cover risks, an increase of the overall risk reduces investment opportunities if it is not possible to increase equity in the same way. This could influence the current economic development negatively.
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