Gender Productivity Gap Research Articles

The effects of gender, age and academic rank on research diversification

In this work we analyze the combined effects of gender, age and academic rank on the propensity of individual scholars to diversify their scientific activity. The aspect of research diversification is measured along three main dimensions, namely its extent and intensity and the cognitive relatedness of the fields of diversification. We apply two regression models to the dataset of scientific output of all Italian professors in the sciences over the period 2004-2008. The aim is to understand how personal and organizational traits can influence individual behaviors in terms of research diversification. Among other considerations, our findings urge caution in identifying research diversification as a co-determinant of the gender productivity gap between males and females.

The Gender Gap in Agricultural Productivity: The Role of Market Imperfections

This paper hypothesises that labour and credit market imperfections – by discouraging off-farm income-generating activities and restricting access to inputs, respectively – affect female farm productivity more deeply than male productivity. The paper develops a theoretical model, which decomposes the contribution of various market imperfections to the gender productivity gap. Empirically we show that agricultural labour productivity is, on average, 44 per cent lower on female-headed plots than on those managed by male heads. 34 per cent of this gap is explained by differences in labour market access and 29 per cent by differences in credit access.

Effects of male and female education on economic growth: Some evidence from Asia

We use extreme bounds analysis (EBA) to examine the comparative growth effects of gender disaggregated and level-specific enrolment ratios in a panel of Asian economies. To test our hypotheses, we employ both endogenous and exogenous growth frameworks. The externality effects of education are positive and robust for both males and females and are relatively large and significant at primary, secondary and tertiary levels. The results are suggestive of a gender productivity gap. Asian economies can grow faster by investing more in female education.

Crossing the hurdle: the determinants of individual scientific performance

An original cross sectional dataset referring to a medium sized Italian university is implemented in order to analyze the determinants of scientific research production at individual level. The dataset includes 942 permanent researchers of various scientific sectors for a three year time span (2008 - 2010). Three different indicators - based on the number of publications or citations - are considered as response variables. The corresponding distributions are highly skewed and display an excess of zero - valued observations. In this setting, the goodness of fit of several Poisson mixture regression models are explored by assuming an extensive set of explanatory variables. As to the personal observable characteristics of the researchers, the results emphasize the age effect and the gender productivity gap, as previously documented by existing studies. Analogously, the analysis confirm that productivity is strongly affected by the publication and citation practices adopted in different scientific disciplines. The empirical evidence on the connection between teaching and research activities suggests that no univocal substitution or complementarity thesis can be claimed: a major teaching load does not affect the odds to be a non-active researcher and does not significantly reduce the number of publications for active researchers. In addition, new evidence emerges on the effect of researchers administrative tasks, which seem to be negatively related with researcher's productivity, and on the composition of departments. Researchers' productivity is apparently enhanced by operating in department filled with more administrative and technical staff, and it is not significantly affected by the composition of the department in terms of senior or junior researchers.

Whose business is it anyway?

This article examines how gender may account for productivity gaps across enterprises. First, using data from six countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, the article demonstrates that the extent and significance of any productivity gap by gender depends critically on the criteria used to classify an enterprise. Using a definition of ‘female participation in ownership,’ there are few differences in average performance measures. However, a 12% productivity gap emerges when a tighter definition, based on decision-making control, is used. Second, the article examines which entrepreneurial characteristics (education, management skills, experience and the motivation for being an entrepreneur) are most associated with higher productivity. The findings reveal that there are some gender gaps in the prevalence of these characteristics, but that these do not account for the overall gender productivity gap. Rather, while women benefit as much as men from education and management skills, there are non-linear impacts by gender in the benefits of having a family background in entrepreneurship; sons rather than daughters benefit from having a father that was an entrepreneur or from joining a family enterprise.

Gender Pay Gap, Productivity Gap and Discrimination in Canadian Clothing Manufacturing in 1870

Women's earnings were less than men's in Canadian clothing factories in 1870. Orthodox neoclassical theory would explain that gender pay gap as a reflection of a gender productivity gap. Using classical hypothesis testing we reject that view, based on a large cross-section of 1870 census data. We find the gender pay gap was significantly larger than the gender productivity gap, much as Hellerstein et al. [1999] found for US manufacturing circa 1990. Our results are clear and compelling evidence of gender pay discrimination, contrary to the view that unregulated markets are efficient or fair.

A Study on the Wage Gap by the Education Standards and Gender Productivity Gap

A Study on the Wage Gap by the Education Standards and Gender Productivity Gap

A market test for sex discrimination: Evidence from Japanese firm-level panel data

This paper examines the empirical implications of Becker's classical theory of employer discrimination. If the male–female wage differential is due to employer discrimination, then non-discriminatory employers will hire more women and enjoy a higher profit than discriminatory employers. This proposition is tested using Japanese firm-level panel data from the 1990s. The empirical results, based on pooled OLS, indicate that an increase in the proportion of women employed by a firm enhances its operating profit. The female proportion could be endogenous in the profit equation, however, because firms may adjust their female labor in response to positive productivity shocks. To deal with this possible endogeneity, investment or intermediate input amounts are used as proxy variables for productivity shocks, as suggested by Olley and Pakes (Olley, G. S., and A. Pakes (1996): “The Dynamics of Productivity in the Telecommunications Equipment Industry,” Econometrica, 64(6), 1263–1297.) and Levinsohn and Petrin (Levinsohn, J., and A. Petrin (2003): “Estimating Production Functions Using Inputs to Control for Unobservables,” The Review of Economic Studies, 70(2), 317–341.). The findings based on these proxy variable estimations confirm the robustness of the finding that hiring more women results in higher profit. This result fails to reject the hypothesis that employer discrimination is a source of the male-female wage gap. However, the size of estimated effect of female proportion on profit is 1/20 of the predicted coefficient calculated based on the assumption that all the observed gender wage gap is due to gender discrimination. This result suggests that the large portion of gender wage gap is due to gender productivity gap. In addition, those firms that hire more women do not necessarily grow faster than firms that hire fewer women.