The Impact of Gender Role Attitudes on Women's Fertility Choices and Labour Market Outcomes Across OECD Countries

By Nicole M. Fortin Department of Economics University of British Columbia September 2006 CIAR - Social Interactions, Identity and Well-Being

Stylized Facts of Interest

 After two decades on spectacular gains, in many OECD countries,  progress in the gender earnings gap has more or less stalled in Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom, the United States and Sweden since the mid 1990s  there are also been a stabilization in female labour force participation in Canada, Finland, Norway, Sweden, the United States and the United Kingdom.

2

 In Fortin and Schirle (2006), we find a gender earnings ratio in Canada around 78% since 1992 More recent data from the LFS 2004 shows that the ratio was still at 80% 0.8

Hourly Wage 0.75

Age 25-54 0.7

0.65

Age 16-64 Age 25-54 Annual Earnings 0.6

1981 Age 16-64 1983 1985 1987 1989 1991 1993 1995 Figure 1. Female/Male Median Earnings Ratio in Canada Source: Fortin and Schirle (2006) – SCF data 1997 3

 In Fortin and Schirle (2006), we find that female labour force participation has stabilized since the early 1990s 0.95

0.85

0.75

male age 25-54 male age 16-64 female age 25-54 0.65

0.55

0.45

female age 16-64 0.35

1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 Figure 2. Male and Female Labour Force Participation by Age Group in Canada Source: Fortin and Schirle (2006) – SCF data 4

■ Bernstein (EPI, 2005) presents a similar view of the US gender pay ratio.

5

Motivation

 The fact that this stabilization has occurred in many different countries under different economic conditions makes one suspicious that more than the usual economic factors may be at play.

 Indeed, Blau and Kahn (2004) who study the slowing gender wage convergence in the United States attribute the slowdown to factors that contributed to changes in the unexplained gender gap  The popular press (Belkin, 2003; Wallis, 2004; Story, 2005) has suggested the notion that women are increasingly “opting out” of employment when they have children. 6

Motivation

 Sociologists (Cotter, Hermsen and Vanneman, 2006) wonder whether we are witnessing “The End of the Gender Revolution”  There is, of course, the possibility that we have simply exhausted the labour market effects of the “Pill” revolution  Goldin (2004), Goldin and Katz (2002) and Bailey (2006) have provided compelling evidence that changes in labour market outcomes of cohorts born from late 1940s on are due to innovation in contraception 7

Changes in Labour Force Participation by Birth-Cohort

Source: Bailey (2006) for the United States 8

Changes in Labour Force Participation by Birth-Cohort

Source: Schirle (2006) 9



Hypotheses

If indeed it actually exists, the “opting-out” phenomena would be affecting the 1975-1980 birth cohorts  Interestingly, this phenomena could also be characterized in terms of an identity conflict.

 The “Pill” revolution may have allowed women to embrace men’s identity as breadwinners  But women may be uneasy about renouncing their traditional identity as mothers and homemakers  This identity conflict is sometimes referred to as the “working mother’s guilt” 10



Hypotheses

This is a situation where the women’s own well-being challenged is  An alternative explanation offered by the proponents of the “opting out” hypothesis is that mothers are choosing to stay at home in greater numbers due to the stresses of living in two-earner families or making it in the labor market.

 In this situation, the women’s choices can be made for the family’s well-being  Booth and van Ours (2005) investigates the impact of working part-time on women’s life satisfaction and of their partners 11

Objective of the paper

 As a first step towards testing the hypothesized role of conflicting identities and of a return to traditional gender roles as factors contributing to the slowdown of the economic progress of women,  this paper evaluates the impact of gender role attitudes and work values on women’s labour market outcomes and fertility choices across OECD countries, comparing individual outcomes with country-specific ones.

12

Objective of the paper

  

More specifically, the

empirical analysis focuses    on the impact of attitudes towards gender roles, attitudes towards competition, and different aspects of work, on, at the individual level,  women’s employment decisions and  part-status among working women. on, at the country level,    women’s employment rates total fertility rates gender pay gap. 13

Objective of the paper: Theoretical Perspectives

 The analysis considers the effects of  whether both men and women agree with the traditional gender roles, following Becker’s (1985) model of the household division of labor   the identity conflict faced by working mothers, following Akerlof and Kranton (2000) model of identity attitudes towards competition, following Becker’s (1971) model of employer discrimination   gender differences in work values and involvement in altruistic volunteering, extending Beckers’ model of limited to include altruistic amenities (Fortin, 2005).

social norms (average attitudes by country), following Akerlof’s (1980) model 14

Preview of the findings

 Perceptions of men as the main breadwinners are found to display the strongest negative association with female employment rates and the gender pay gap.  However, these views are softening among recent cohorts.  Perceptions of women’s role as homemakers are more persistent over time. They could be implicated in the recent slowdown of the gender convergence in pay.  Finally, the unavoidable clash between family values and equalitarian views, that takes the form of an identity conflict for many women─ the so-called mother’s guilt─, is another obstacle in the path towards greater gender equality in the labour market. 15

Data

 The paper uses three waves of the World Value Surveys (WVS): the 1990-93 and 1995-97 waves (ICPSR 2970), and 1999-2001 wave (ICPSR 3975), which also includes answers to the European Value Survey (EVS).  The coverage of societies/countries in the Values Studies has grown from 43 in the 1990 wave to 62 in the 1995 wave and 82 in the 2000 wave.

 Because of the difficulty of finding comparable measures of the gender pay gap across countries, I limit my analysis to 24-26 OECD societies/countries.

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WORLD VALUE SURVEYS: Questions on Gender Role Attitudes

Do you agree or disagree with the following statements? 1990 1999 1997 V128 2001 V78 When jobs are scarce, men should have more right to a job than women V129 V130 V79 When jobs are scarce, people should be forced to retire early When jobs are scarce, employers should give priority to [BRITISH] people over immigrants Agree 1 1 1 Neither 2 2 2 Disagree 3 3 3 DK 4 4 4 For each of the following statements I read out, can you tell me how much you agree with each. Do you agree strongly, agree, disagree, or disagree strongly? 1990 1997 1999 2001 Agree strongly Agree Disagree Strongly disagree V113 1 2 3 4 V98 V114 V115 One of my main goals in life has been to make my parents proud I make a lot of effort to live up to what my friends expect A working mother can establish just as 1 1 2 2 3 3 4 4 V99 V100 V101 V103 V116 V117 V118 V119 warm and secure a relationship with her children as a mother who does not work Being a housewife is just as fulfilling as working for pay Both the husband and wife should contribute to household income On the whole, men make better political leaders than women do A university education is more important for a boy than for a girl 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 3 3 3 3 4 4 4 4 DK 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 17

WORLD VALUE SURVEYS: Questions on Work Values

Here are some more aspects of a job that people say are important. Please look at them and tell me which ones you personally think are important in a job? (CODE ALL MENTIONED) 1990 1997 V75 V76 V77 V78 V79 V80 V81 V82 V83 V84 V85 1999 2001 V86 V87 V88 V89 V90 V91 V92 V93 V94 V95 V96 EVS C024 C025 Good pay Not too much pressure Good job security A job respected by people in general Good hours An opportunity to use initiative Generous holidays A job in which you feel you can achieve something A responsible job A job that is interesting A job that meets one's abilities A useful job to society Meeting people V128 1990-97 V144 1999-2001 1 MENTIONED 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 MENTIONED 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 NOT Competition is good. It stimulates people to work hard and develop new ideas 1 DK=99 2 3 4 5 6 7 Competition is harmful. It brings out the worst in people 8 9 10 18

WORLD VALUE SURVEYS: Questions on Volunteering

Please look carefully at the following list of voluntary organizations and activities and say... A) which, if any, do you belong to? (Code all `yes' answers as 1, if not mentioned code as 2) B) And for which, if any, are you currently doing unpaid voluntary work? [Code all `yes' answers as 1; if not mentioned code as 2] Phil 1990 1997 V35 1999 2001 V54 Pers Pers Lead Lead Phil Phil Phil Lead Phil Lead Phil Phil Phil V28 V30 V31 V32 V35 V35 V33 V34 V36 V29 V36 V36 V36 V55 V56 V57 V58 V59 V60 V61 V62 V63 V64 V65 V66 V67 Social welfare services for elderly, handicapped or deprived people Religious or church organizations Education, arts, music or cultural activities Labor unions Political parties or groups Local community action on issues like poverty, employment, housing, racial equality Third world development or human rights Conservation, environmental, animal rights groups Professional associations Youth work (scouts, guides, youth clubs, etc.) Sports or recreation Women’s groups Peace movement Voluntary organizations concerned with health Do voluntary work 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 Not Mentioned 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 19



Countries selected

They include the following countries, classified according to the gender-sensitive typology of countries proposed by Siaroff (1994):  Protestant social democratic states: Sweden, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Denmark.

    Protestant liberal states: Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States, with minimal family welfare but a relatively egalitarian labour market Advanced Christian democratic states: Austria, Belgium, France, Italy, Germany and the Netherlands Late female mobilization states: Greece, Ireland, Japan, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland and Turkey, although Japan and Turkey are actually singletons.

Transition from communist regimes: Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia.

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Gender pay ratio and total fertility rates

 Data on the gender pay gap and total fertility rates for these countries for periods corresponding roughly to the ones of the WVS were available from secondary sources, the OECD and Eurostat among others.

 In view of important problems in finding figures for the raw gender pay ratio that are comparable across countries, I paid close attention to the methodologies used and supplemented data from reporting agencies with those from individual researchers.  As in other studies, there are substantial limits to comparability across countries.

21

Table A1. Women’s Employment Rates and Gender Earnings Ratio by Country WVS Country Acronym Women’s Employment Gender Earnings Country No. Rates (18-64 year olds) Ratio 17 42 7 12 33 6 23 1 87 16 21 9 4 13 5 18 25 41 85 8 19 26 44 11 2 3 Australia Austria Belgium Canada Czech Republic Denmark Finland France Greece Hungary Iceland Ireland Italy Japan Netherlands Norway Poland Portugal Slovakia Spain Sweden Switzerland Turkey United States United Kingdom West Germany Unweighted Average AS AT BE CA CZ DK FI FR GR HU IS IE IT JP NL NO PL PT SK ES SE CH TK US UK DEW

1990- 1993

─ 57.3 49.2 65.7 90.4 79.6 82.2 53.9 ─ 78.2 74.8 49.8 51.6 57.7 53.1 84.0 78.7 67.8 95.6 37.5 87.9 55.9 18.7 71.9 70.1 61.7 65.6 69.8 ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ 64.0 ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ 65.8 ─ 86.8 45.0 ─ ─ 35.0 84.6 69.9 25.7 68.1 ─ 66.6

WVS 1995- 1999- 1997 2001

─ 73.9 60.1 69.8 78.7 86.7 75.1 61.8 71.4 65.8 79.9 57.6 62.3 60.4 69.6 ─ ─ 57.6 77.6 44.5 87.0 ─ 17.2 75.4 66.3 ─ 61.1 69.8

OECD 2000 (25-54)

66.8 73.5 67.8 74.0 73.7 80.5 77.6 69.6 52.6 61.7 87.4 53.1 50.7 62.7 70.9 81.5 72.0 73.9 64.8 50.6 81.7 76.8 ─ 74.1 73.1 71.1 66.6 0.83 0.79 0.89 0.74 0.77 0.86 0.83 0.81 0.79 0.79 0.84 0.80 0.82 0.59 0.78 0.86 0.78 0.74 0.78 0.79 0.83 0.70 0.65 0.76 0.72 0.77 0.78

Secondary Sources 1990- 1995- 1999- 1993 1997 2001

0.80 0.68 0.75 0.69 0.73 0.83 0.75 0.75 0.79 0.81 0.87 0.80 0.83 0.56 0.72 0.85 0.82 0.71 0.66 0.72 0.78 0.69 0.60 0.73 0.69 0.71 0.74 0.84 0.80 0.88 0.74 0.78 0.86 0.82 0.88 0.80 0.79 0.84 0.80 0.85 0.64 0.79 0.86 0.85 0.74 0.79 0.86 0.83 0.78 0.78 0.78 0.75 0.80 0.81 22

Table A1 (continued). Total Fertility Rates by Country WVS Country Acronym Total Fertility Rate Country No. (OECD Social Indicators)

1990 1995 2000

17 41 85 8 19 26 44 11 2 3 42 7 12 33 6 23 1 87 16 21 9 4 13 5 18 25 Australia Austria Belgium Canada Czech Republic Denmark Finland France Greece Hungary Iceland Ireland Italy Japan Netherlands Norway Poland Portugal Slovakia Spain Sweden Switzerland Turkey United States United Kingdom West Germany Unweighted Average AS AT BE CA CZ DK FI FR GR HU IS IE IT JP NL NO PL PT SK ES SE CH TK US UK DEW 1.91 1.57 2.09 1.36 2.13 1.59 2.93 2.08 1.8 1.45 1.45 1.62 1.71 1.89 1.67 1.78 1.78 1.39 1.84 2.3 2.11 1.33 1.54 1.62 1.93 2.04 1.80 1.85 1.4 1.55 1.62 1.28 1.8 1.81 1.7 1.32 1.57 2.08 1.83 1.18 1.42 1.53 1.87 1.61 1.4 1.52 1.18 1.73 1.48 2.62 2.02 1.7 1.25 1.63 1.60 1.75 1.55 1.29 1.24 1.54 1.5 2.57 2.06 1.65 1.38 1.34 1.66 1.53 1.14 1.77 1.73 1.88 1.29 1.32 2.08 1.89 1.23 1.36 1.72 1.85 1.34 23

Descriptive Statistics

Table 1. Average Gender Role Attitudes and Work Values Across Birth Cohorts Birth Cohort: <1935 Gender Role Attitudes: Scarce jobs should go to men first Working mom warm with kids Being a housewife fulfilling Both should contribute income ¹ 0.36 0.66 0.69 0.79 Important Aspects of Job: Good pay 0.63 Good hours 0.47 Useful job to society ² 0.57 Meeting people ² 0.61 Competition OK Number of children 0.63 Actual 2.91 Ideal 2.76 1936 1945 0.32 Women 1946 -1955 0.23 1956 -1965 >1965 0.20 0.15 <1935 0.38 0.75 0.65 0.80 0.68 0.49 0.46 0.53 0.62 2.60 2.63 0.80 0.58 0.81 0.73 0.53 0.44 0.50 0.61 2.30 2.54 0.79 0.58 0.77 0.75 0.57 0.40 0.52 0.61 2.00 2.49 0.80 0.57 0.82 0.79 0.59 0.40 0.56 0.60 1.11 2.39 0.59 0.72 0.82 0.71 0.44 0.28 0.62 0.67 2.77 2.67 1936 1945 0.32 0.67 0.67 0.75 0.73 0.42 0.39 0.41 0.65 2.48 2.55 Men 1946 -1955 0.26 1956 -1965 >1965 0.23 0.21 0.71 0.63 0.76 0.78 0.46 0.42 0.44 0.65 2.25 2.51 0.71 0.61 0.74 0.80 0.49 0.37 0.47 0.64 1.86 2.44 0.73 0.63 0.76 2.42 0.78 0.83 0.54 0.38 0.48 0.64 24

Empirical Strategy: The issue of causality

 A difficult question is the issue of causality.

 Despite efforts to address this issue, many of the results below should be more precisely referred to as partial correlations, rather than causal factors.

 Were the women’s attitudes formed before their employment decisions, in their youth for example, or are these attitudes subsequent rationalizations to their previous labour market choices?

 Do individual preferences dictate labour market choices or are individual choices are conditioned by country-specific social norms? 25

Empirical Strategy: The issue of causality

 Remedies: Ex-post rationalization  Secondary evidence from panel survey data (Thornton, Alwin and Camburn, 1983; Kiecolt and Acok, 1988; Burt and Scott, 2002) claims that traditional gender role attitudes are linked to religious beliefs and developed in youth.  I also consider a sample of immigrant women; the effects of attitudes formed early in life in a sample of immigrant women will likely be different from those estimated from a sample of natives.

26

Empirical Strategy: The issue of causality

 Remedies: Impact of social norms  Male country-specific average attitudes are used to capture societal influences.  Country-fixed effects capture country-specific other country-specific variables arising from institutional differences.

 Robust standard errors clustered by country are used to adjust for differences in the variance of individual heterogeneity by country.  The regressions are also estimated on a sample of men to assess, as in Fernandez and Fogli (2005), whether the attitudes are not capturing some other economic factors, such as persistent unemployment. 27

Empirical Strategy: Individual-level Regressions

Let

Y ict

denote the labour market outcome of woman

i

in country

c

at time

t

, here employment and part-time work status. Assuming linear preferences, the individual estimating equation takes the form

Y ict

  0  

G G ict

 

J J ict

 

I I ict

 

V V ict

 

X X ict

 

m G mct

 

C C

 

T T

 

ict

, where

G ict

are the gender roles attitudes,

J ict

work values,

I ict

inner conflict variables,

V ict

volunteering activities,

X ict

are individual characteristics such as education, age, marital status, etc. and where

G mct

are the average men’s gender role attitudes by country at time t,

C

and

T

are countries and time dummies. 28

Empirical Strategy: The issue of causality

 At the country-level, reverse causality is the problematic issue.

 Are women’s employment rates lower in some countries because “the man as main breadwinner” is the norm and “scare jobs are given to men first,”  or have women’s low employment rates in some countries resulted in men being the sole provider for most families and thus getting priority for jobs? 29

Empirical Strategy: The issue of causality



Remedies: reverse causality



use lagged attitudes



include a measure of child care support used by Jaunotte (2003) (country fixed-effects saturates the model.)



use country-specific average male attitudes, which are less likely suffer from endogeneity problems.

30

Empirical Strategy: Country-level Regressions

The analysis seeks to explain whether country differences in women’s employment rates and fertility rates can be accounted for by social norms, measured by country-specific average gender role attitudes and work values:

Y ct

  0  

G G ct

 

J J ict

 

v V ict

 

F F c



t

 

ict

, where

F c

denote some country-specific family policy, and

t

is a time trend. I also explore the impact of gender role attitudes and work values on the gender pay gap by country. Because the gender pay gap is a measure of the difference between the average wages of men and women, the explanatory variables, in the spirit of the Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition, are also measured as gender differences: 

Y ct

  0  

G



G ct

 

J



J ct

 

X



X ct

 

t t

 

G



t



G ct



t

 

ict

, where the operator  denotes differences between male and female country averages,

t

denotes a time trend, and where the interaction parameter 

G



t

captures the time effect of changes in gender role attitudes. 31

Table 2. Determinants of Employment Status: Marginal Effects from a Probit Model Gender role attitudes: Sample: Scarce jobs should go To men first Working mom warm with kids Being a housewife Fulfilling Both spouses should contribute income Important in a job: Good pay (1) (2) (3) Women -0.068 (-5.82) -0.049 (-2.65) 0.147 (7.58) -0.084 (-5.92) 0.129 (7.49) -0.078 (-5.82) 0.029 0.103 (6.08) 0.022 (4) -0.075 (-7.49) 0.138 (10.08) -0.088 (-10.39) 0.005 (5) Immigrant Women -0.222 (-4.57) 0.129 (6.52) -0.141 (-2.41) 0.048 (6) Men -0.007 (-0.95) 0.129 (1.02) -0.004 (-0.70) 0.036 Good hours Useful to society Meeting people Competition is OK Volunteer in organizations with leader building skills philanthropic religious and cultural Men’s average gender role attitudes Chi-2 No. obs No. countries No 667.37 24433 26 (1.35) 0.022 (1.66) 0.026 (1.21) 0.125 (11.56) -0.047 (-1.46) 0.005 (0.32) No 3477.8 24433 26 (1.39) -0.002 (-0.14) -0.037 (-2.63) 0.023 (1.71) 0.032 (1.12) 0.077 (3.67) -0.047 (-1.95) -0.020 (-0.90) No 713.06 6453 15 (0.55) 0.005 (0.51) 0.041 (2.89) 0.127 (12.51) -0.016 (-1.04) 0.001 (0.01) Yes 7809.2 23286 26 (0.50) -0.060 (-0.86) 0.032 (1.10) 0.274 (3.34) -0.025 (-0.42) -0.025 (-0.46) No 481.78 362 8 No 914.38 21079 26

Notes:

The independent variable is a binary variable equal to 1 if the individual is employed and 0 otherwise. Age, education, marital status, time and country dummies included in all regressions. Z-values from robust clustering by country in parentheses. (1.62) 0.011 (0.93) 0.032 (2.81) 0.040 (5.53) -0.039 (-1.29) 0.018 (2.53) 32

Empirical Results: individual employment status

 The absence of mother’s guilt is the dominant explanatory gender role attitude  The magnitude of the positive effect on employment status is comparable to upper secondary education, or half of tertiary education  Men as breadwinner and women as homemakers have significant negative effects  Leadership skills (from volunteering question) have also strong positive effects, especially for immigrant women 33

Table 3. Determinants of Incidence of Part Time Work among Employees: Marginal Effects from a Probit Model Gender role attitudes: Scarce jobs should go to men first Sample: Working mom warm with kids Being a housewife fulfilling Both spouses should contribute income Important in a job: Good pay Good hours Useful to society Meeting people Competition is OK Volunteer in organizations with leader building skills philanthropic religious and cultural Men’s average gender role attitudes (1) (2) (3) Women 0.015 (0.89) -0.014 (-0.49) -0.028 (-2.36) 0.033 (3.26) -0.034 (-3.53) 0.050 (5.26) -0.054 (-3.55) -0.026 (-2.72) 0.014 (1.62) 0.063 (4.90) -0.028 (-1.45) 0.012 (1.32) -0.051 (-3.15) -0.027 (-1.35) 0.048 (3.16) -0.016 (-1.38) -0.006 -0.057 (-1.43) 0.001 (0.06) 0.028 (1.41) 0.046 (1.38) (4) 0.019 (1.11) -0.027 (-2.59) 0.034 (3.79) -0.033 (-3.29) 0.052 (5.31) -0.055 (-3.53) -0.028 (-2.80) 0.022 (2.65) 0.065 (5.02) (5) Men Chi-2 No. obs No. countries No 1104.11 15028 26 No 477.14 15028 26 No 174.26 4469 15 Yes 822.5 14756 26 No 3938.23 18221 26

Notes:

Age, education, marital status, time and country dummies included in all regressions. Z-values in parentheses are from robust clustering by country. -0.001 (-0.29) -0.007 (2.09) -0.003 (-1.26) -0.009 (-2.34) 0.010 (2.32) -0.054 (-1.38) -0.010 (-2.39) 0.002 (0.54) 0.015 (2.05) 34

Empirical Results: Part-time work status

 The value or attitude with greatest statistical significance is “importance of good hours in a job” (positive effect)  Followed by  “religious volunteering” (positive effect)    “competition OK” (negative effect) “housewife fulfilling” (positive effect) “importance of good pay” (negative effect) 35

1 .75

.5

NL CA DE SE DK SE SE IS DK US FI CH FI IE GR CA AT CH DEW IT JP PT NL ES ES ES PT IE FR HU PL AT .25

TK CZ PL SK TK TK 0 .1

.3

.5

1 .75

.5

DE DE SK CZ GR DEW SE NL PT FI PL HU IT NL DK NO SE SE UK BE FR AT FR IS UK BE SK IS HU AS IE CZ US CA PL ES FI US FI JP JP JP .25

TK TK TK 0 .3

.5

.7

.9

1 .75

.5

.25

NL JP BE FR ES DK DK FI GR PT UK IT SK DE FR BE UK IE NO PL FI US CA HU SE SK DE SE SE HU NO AT CH DEW US US CA AT IE PL ES ES TK TK TK IS IS CZ 0 .6

.7

.8

1 .75

.5

.25

SK CZ PL AT JP JP PT HU FR NL US FI IE PL ES ES ES SE DE DK SK GR TK US DE SE SE NO CH DEW US AS 0 .1

.3

.5

Figure 1 - Women's Employment Rate Across Countries 36

l Table 4a. Determinants of Women’s Employment Rates Across Countries

Averages by country

Gender role attitudes: Scarce jobs should go (1) (2)

Women’s

-0.764 (3)

Men’s

-0.546 (4) (5) -0.498 (6)

Women’s Women’s Lagged

-0.909

2

to men first Being a housewife fulfilling Competition is OK (-4.17) -0.109 (-1.08) 0.493 (-3.25) -0.232 (-2.07) 0.893 (-2.41) -0.042 (-0.26) 0.471 (-5.86) -0.204 (-1.26) 0.304 Volunteer in organizations with leader building skills (1.79) 0.371 (1.85) (2.74) 0.195 (1.35) (1.98) 0.347 (2.03) -0.320 (0.74) 0.054 (0.21) religious and cultural Log of public expenditures on child care Time trend 1 -0.002 (-0.40) -0.359 (-1.55) -0.006 (-1.58) -0.347 (-1.41) 0.000 (-0.09) 0.115 (7.50) 0.004 (1.22) (-1.60) 0.047 (2.38) 0.000 (0.00) -0.261 (-1.26) 0.007 (0.84) Adjusted-R square No. observations No. countries 0.221 50 0.674 50 0.652 50 0.675 42 0.791 42 0.830 21 26 26 26 21 21

Notes:

Women’s education level are included in all regressions. The women’s employment rates by country are reported in Table A1. T-values in parentheses are from robust clustering by country. 16 37

Empirical Results: Women’s employment rates across Countries

 Traditional gender role attitudes are negatively correlated with women’s employment rates.

 “Scarce jobs should to the men first” is the only robustly significant explanatory gender role attitude (negative)  It is stronger using lagged values   Men’s attitudes still very significant Finding is similar to the finding of Azmat, Güell and Manning (2004) regarding gender differences in unemployment rates.

 Men’s “competition is OK” has a strong positive and significant effect, but only contemporaneously 38

Empirical Results: Women’s employment rates across countries

 The effect of log expenditures on child care is cut by half when attitudes are included,  This supports Algan and Cahuc (2004)’s claim that the effect of policy variables may be over-estimated when values given rise to them are not controlled for 39

Empirical Results: Fertility rates across countries

 Starting in the 1960s the massive entry of women in the labour market was coupled with a fall in fertility rates, which seems to have bottomed out in some high FLP countries.

 The cross-sectional relationship between total fertility rates and women’s employment rates was negative in the 1970s and up to the early 1980s, but became positive in the late 1980s (Ahn and Mira, 2002).

 The emergence of high and persistent unemployment rates has been suggested as an explanation for the reversal in the relationship (Adsera, 2005).

 In the presence of high unemployment and unstable contracts, women postpone childbearing to increase lifetime income through early skill acquisition and minimize unemployment risk.

40

Total Fertility Rates across Countries

ES .4

ES 1990 IE FR BE NL JP AT IT UK CA DEW PT IS US HU FI DK NO SE 1995 FI US AS JP DEW NO SE ES 1999 US IS FR BE PT UK NL CA JP HU IT FI SK CZ DK SE Total ES ES ES IS IE BE IT FR NL AT BE PT JP IT US US US CA DEW AS NL FI IS HU FI DK NONO DK SE SK CZ SE .8

.6

.8

1 .4

Women's Employment Rates Total Fertility Rates .6

Fitted values 1 Graphs by year 41

Adjusted-R square No. observations No. countries (1) Table 4b. Determinants of Total Fertility Rates Across Countries Women's Employment Rates

Averages by country

Gender role attitudes: Scarce jobs should go to men first Being a housewife fulfilling

Women’s

-1.188

(-3.04) 0.791

(3.04) Women’s Education (primary omitted) Secondary 0.384

0.220

Upper secondary Tertiary Time (1.35) -0.367

(-1.12) 1.097

(3.48) -0.014

(-1.67) (0.77) -0.754

(-2.25) 0.600

(2.16) -0.020

(-2.32) 0.374

46 24 (2) 0.568

46 24 (3)

Men's

-1.149

(-3.29) 0.777

(2.46) 0.284

(0.93) -0.716

(-1.97) 0.579

(1.79) -0.022

(-2.79) 0.545

46 24 (4) 0.827

(3.29) (5) 0.680

(2.36)

Women’s

-0.569

(-1.38) 0.877

(3.81) (6) 0.666

(2.26)

Men's

-0.684

(-1.88) 0.860

(3.02) 0.245

(0.99) -0.576

(-2.14) 0.792

(2.71) -0.015

(-2.23) 0.482

46 24 0.109

(0.48) -0.979

-(4.55) 0.544

(2.24) -0.014

(-1.98) 0.626

46 24 0.164

(0.71) -0.960

-(4.14) 0.506

(1.93) -0.018

-(2.67) 0.593

46 24

Notes:

The women’s total fertility rates by country are reported in Table A1. T-values in parentheses are from robust clustering by country.

42

Empirical Results: Fertility rates across countries

 When gender role attitudes are included as explanatory variables, fertility rates are shown to depend on employment rates rather than the opposite  “being a housewife fulfilling” has a significant positive impact on fertility  This effect is similar when  Women’s attitudes are included (identity story)  Men’s attitudes are included (social norms story)  Combined with the positive effect of women’s employment rates on fertility indicates that “balancing work and family” is a central concern in fertility decisions. 43

.5

.4

.3

.2

.1

JP TK TK PL SE DK IS FI DK NO AT UK CA DEW NL CA PT FI FR US SE US HU CZ IE TK GR CH US DEW FI SE IT PL NO BE FR ES IT CH IS -.1

0 .1

.2

JP .3

JP .5

.4

.3

.2

.1

UK -.05

JP TK JP JP TK AT CA DK US ES NL UK US FR SE SE FI IE FI FI IS NO NO FR DEW CA DEW TK NL IS IT SK BE PL 0 .05

.1

.15

PL GR .2

.1

.5

.4

.3

DK JP JP TK JP CA CH BE FR BE CA FI IE ES FR US US HU NL PT US IT PL IT IS ES DK IS NO PL PL FI FI AT DEW UK SK TK TK GR -.05

0 .05

.1

.15

.5

JP .4

JP JP .3

.2

PT AT PL SE TK AT UK UK US NL DEW SK FI US DEW NL CA BE US FR SE CZ TK IE DK IT FI NO NO ES FR TK .1

-.15

-.1

-.05

0 ES .05

PL Figure 2 - Gender Pay Gap Across Countries 44

Table 5. Determinants of the Gender Pay Gap across Countries Gender Gap in Mean (1) (2) (3) (4) Tertiary education 0.034 0.568 0.544 0.486 0.518 Gender role attitudes: (4.65) (4.56) (4.21) (4.93) Scarce jobs should go to men first Being a housewife 0.029 0.041 0.402 (3.17) -0.313 0.410 (3.24) -0.254 0.436 (3.33) -0.694 fulfilling Important in a job: (-1.93) (-1.44) (-1.97) Good hours -0.066 -0.220 -0.211 Time Trend -0.004 -0.003 (-1.31) -0.004 (-1.28) -0.006 Time Trend*Being (-2.10) (-1.33) (-1.62) (-3.07) 0.069 a housewife fulfilling (1.80) Adjusted R-square 0.518 0.553 0.557

Notes:

The dependent variable is the logarithm of 1 minus the gender pay ratios displayed in table A1; its means is equal to 0.227. The explanatory variables are the country-specific male averages minus the female averages of each variable. There are 45 observations and 24 countries. T-values in parentheses are from robust clustering by country. 0.580 45

.5

.4

.3

.2

.1

DK JP JP TK JP CA BE FR BE CH CA FI IE ES US FR US HU NL PT US IT IS ES DK IS NO FI PL PL FI AT DEW UK SK TK TK GR -.05

0 .05

.1

.15

.5

.4

.3

.2

.1

PL SE DK -.1

JP TK TK AT UK CA CH PT FI US IE CZ IE FI FR SE US IT PL NO BE ES IT FR CA TK GR US DEW CH IS 0 .1

.2

JP .3

JP .5

.4

.3

.2

.1

-.1

UK -.05

JP TK JP JP TK CA AT DK US ES NL UK US FR SE IE SE FI FI FI IS NO FR DEW CA TK NL IS IT SK PL BE 0 .05

.1

.15

PL GR .5

.4

.3

.2

.1

US DEW -.15

JP JP TK JP TK CA UK US FI SE SK FI SE IE ES IS NO IS FR NL IT PL BE PL DK FI CZ AT -.1

-.05

0 .05

Figure 3 - Gender Pay Gap Across Countries 46

Conclusion

 The identity conflict faced by working mothers has implications for both their labour market decisions and their fertility decisions  The role of firms and the state in facilitating the work life balance of the family may be helpful (flexible work hours, affordable day-care, etc)  Traditional gender roles attitudes (social norms) continue to play a role in women’s labour market outcomes.

47

Future research

 Incorporate measures of life-satisfaction to assess the importance of the identity conflict of working mothers  Perform the analysis with completed fertility to address to issue of cohort effects and the “opting-out” hypothesis 48

Table A2. Average (over Time) Gender Role Attitudes and Work Values by Country Country

Gender Role Attitudes

Scarce Working House- Both Women Good Good

Work Values

Useful People Comp

Gender Role Attitudes

Scarce Working House- Both Men Good Good

Work Values

Useful People Comp Australia Austria Belgium Canada Czech Republic Denmark Finland France Greece Hungary Iceland Ireland Italy Japan Netherlands Norway Poland Portugal Slovakia Spain Sweden Switzerland Turkey United States United Kingdom West Germany jobs 0.20 0.31 0.29 0.14 0.32 0.06 0.09 0.26 0.15 0.28 0.04 0.20 0.30 0.26 0.15 0.10 0.36 0.28 0.36 0.22 0.05 0.10 0.50 0.12 0.19 mom 0.77 0.57 0.80 0.80 0.75 0.87 0.97 0.78 0.80 0.78 0.91 0.70 0.71 0.95 0.83 0.80 0.60 0.78 0.73 0.74 0.86 ─ 0.60 0.83 0.78 wife 0.67 0.59 0.58 0.73 0.49 0.53 0.67 0.56 0.35 0.60 0.64 0.67 0.47 0.85 0.49 0.54 0.49 0.44 0.50 0.55 0.57 ─ 0.76 0.76 0.59 income 0.63 ─ 0.75 0.75 0.93 0.67 0.76 0.78 0.90 0.89 0.65 ─ 0.84 0.61 0.43 0.79 0.91 0.92 0.89 0.92 0.90 ─ 0.94 0.72 0.66 pay hours 0.58 0.40 job ─ 0.60 0.46 0.35 0.67 0.46 0.39 0.75 0.54 ─ 0.79 0.49 0.34 0.50 0.38 0.25 0.65 0.44 0.28 0.61 0.35 0.29 0.90 0.54 0.53 0.91 0.77 0.82 0.85 0.66 0.42 0.80 0.55 0.37 0.77 0.55 0.65 0.86 0.77 0.68 0.46 0.36 0.55 0.40 ─ ─ 0.77 0.51 0.44 0.80 0.60 0.54 0.88 0.60 0.27 0.77 0.47 0.44 0.62 0.53 0.27 0.60 0.45 ─ 0.92 0.89 0.97 0.86 0.63 ─ 0.75 0.53 0.29 ─ 0.53 0.58 ─ 0.42 0.52 0.46 0.53 0.53 0.78 0.57 0.56 0.68 ─ 0.68 ─ 0.48 0.43 0.29 0.40 0.48 ─ 0.88 ─ 0.48 OK 0.77 0.77 0.64 0.75 0.81 0.66 0.71 0.65 0.67 0.74 0.82 0.70 0.65 0.63 0.63 0.74 0.71 0.66 0.76 0.65 0.75 0.76 0.68 0.75 0.68 jobs 0.22 0.34 0.26 0.12 0.37 0.04 0.13 0.25 0.29 0.29 0.05 0.22 0.31 0.30 0.13 0.13 0.41 0.30 0.42 0.22 0.04 0.14 0.64 0.15 0.24 mom 0.65 0.47 0.75 0.72 0.64 0.85 0.92 0.78 0.70 0.71 0.81 0.63 0.62 0.89 0.74 0.64 0.49 0.70 0.64 0.73 0.71 ─ 0.55 0.73 0.71 wife 0.68 0.59 0.67 0.75 0.56 0.53 0.69 0.58 0.54 0.69 0.68 0.69 0.56 0.87 0.52 0.56 0.63 0.51 0.56 0.59 0.59 ─ 0.80 0.76 0.54 income 0.65 ─ 0.63 0.75 0.90 0.66 0.73 0.79 0.85 0.87 0.58 ─ 0.77 0.53 0.33 0.79 0.90 0.86 0.89 0.88 0.89 ─ 0.81 0.78 0.67 pay hours job 0.70 0.32 ─ 0.70 0.36 0.34 0.77 0.39 0.39 0.79 0.48 ─ 0.83 0.42 0.26 0.68 0.31 0.23 0.69 0.39 0.29 0.62 0.33 0.30 0.89 0.48 0.48 0.93 0.72 0.77 0.89 0.59 0.45 0.83 0.52 0.38 0.81 0.50 0.63 0.85 0.62 0.79 0.36 0.37 0.68 0.34 0.79 0.47 0.43 0.79 0.47 0.44 0.90 0.51 0.20 0.79 0.47 0.42 0.72 0.45 0.22 0.74 0.38 0.92 0.87 0.98 0.90 0.56 ─ ─ ─ ─ 0.83 0.44 0.27 ─ 0.42 0.50 ─ 0.30 0.50 0.33 0.20 0.38 0.46 ─ 0.88 ─ 0.36 0.42 0.39 0.39 0.49 0.75 0.51 0.48 0.66 ─ 0.59 ─ OK 0.79 0.80 0.66 0.78 0.84 0.75 0.74 0.65 0.67 0.75 0.83 0.74 0.70 0.69 0.66 0.80 0.73 0.67 0.78 0.68 0.79 0.80 0.75 0.79 0.72 0.18 0.67 0.43 0.77 0.68 0.46 ─ ─ 0.73 0.25 0.49 0.48 0.76 0.74 0.39 ─ ─ 0.77

Source:

Proportions of respondents computed from 1990-93, 1995-97 (ICPSR 2790) and 1999-01 World Value Surveys (ICPSR 3975). Individuals aged 18-64 excluding students and retirees. The gender role attitudes and work values are as in Table 1. With approximately 1000 respondents per country, the 90% confidence intervals of a proportion of 0.50 would be around 0.025

49