Fan, Xiaodong
[VerfasserIn]
;
Fang, Hanming
[Sonstige Person, Familie und Körperschaft];
Markussen, Simen
[Sonstige Person, Familie und Körperschaft]National Bureau of Economic Research
Mothers' Employment and Children's Educational Gender Gap
Erschienen:
Cambridge, Mass: National Bureau of Economic Research, May 2015
Erschienen in:NBER working paper series ; no. w21183
Umfang:
1 Online-Ressource
Sprache:
Englisch
DOI:
10.3386/w21183
Identifikator:
Reproduktionsnotiz:
Hardcopy version available to institutional subscribers
Entstehung:
Anmerkungen:
Mode of access: World Wide Web
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Beschreibung:
This paper analyzes the connection between two concurrent trends since 1950: the narrowing and reversal of the educational gender gap and the increased labor force participation rate (LFPR) of married women. We hypothesize that the education production for boys is more adversely affected by a decrease in the mother's time input as a result of increasing employment. Therefore, an increase in the labor force participation rate of married women may narrow and even reverse the educational gender gap in the following generation. We use micro data from the Norwegian registry to directly show that the mother's employment during her children's childhood has an asymmetric effect on the educational achievement of her own sons and daughters. We also document a positive correlation between the educational gender gap in a particular generation and the LFPR of married women in the previous generation at the U.S. state level. We then propose a model that generates a novel prediction about the implications of these asymmetric effects on the mothers' labor supply decisions and find supporting evidence in both the U.S. and Norwegian data