Picture of Parents Homeschooling

Nearly Half of Men Say They Do Most of the Home Schooling. 3 Percent of Women Agree.

Hei-ock

Home schooling, the new parental chore brought about by coronavirus lockdowns, is being handled disproportionately by women, according to a new poll by Morning Consult for The New York Times. Fathers don’t necessarily agree — nearly half of those with children under 12 report spending more time on it than their spouse — but just 3 percent of women say their spouse is doing more. Eighty percent of mothers say they spend more time on it.

Woman Putting on PPE

The Impact of COVID-19 on Gender Equality

Hei-ock

The economic downturn caused by the current COVID-19 outbreak has substantial implications for gender equality, both during the downturn and the subsequent recovery. Compared to “regular” recessions, which affect men’s employment more severely than women’s employment, the employment drop related to social distancing measures has a large impact on sectors with high female employment shares. In addition, closures of schools and daycare centers have massively increased child care needs, which has a particularly large impact on working mothers. The effects of the crisis on working mothers are likely to be persistent, due to high returns to experience in the labor market. Beyond the immediate crisis, there are opposing forces which may ultimately promote gender equality in the labor market. First, businesses are rapidly adopting flexible work arrangements, which are likely to persist. Second, there are also many fathers who now have to take primary responsibility for child care, which may erode social norms that currently lead to a lopsided distribution of the division of labor in house work and child care.

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Boot Camp for New Dads

kendra

Boot Camp for New Dads® (aka Daddy Boot Camp®) is a unique father-to-father, community-based workshop that inspires and equips men of different economic levels, ages and cultures to become confidently engaged with their infants, support their mates and personally navigate their transformation into dads.

Mapping Gender: Shedding Empirical Light on Family Courts’ Treatment of Cases Involving Abuse and Alienation

kendra

This article provides a brief literature survey, focusing on the theory of “parental alienation” which operates as a primary vehicle for making abuse invisible in custody litigation. This Article reports on the co-authors’ pilot study, which begins empirically mapping family courts’ uses of this theory. These pilot results provide preliminary empirical support for the critiques from the field.

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The Need For Better Parental Leave Policies

kendra

“Research conducted by the University of Washington’s Department of Health Services suggests that there is a strong association between paid parental leave and child survival. Additionally, PL+US: Paid Leave for the United States, a nonprofit fighting for paid family leave, states that, “26 weeks of paid maternity leave would increase US women’s labor force participation to the tune of a 5% increase in GDP.” These findings imply that not only would better parental leave policies increase the chances of child survival, but it would also help the United States’ economy.”

Can Robotic Babies Help Prevent Teenage Pregnancies?

Hei-ock Kim

National Geographic February 2018 By David Brindley Jefrin Bayona is already running late for school and it’s just after 6 a.m. “I barely slept last night,” the 15-year-old student says. “The baby woke me up at 10, 12, four in the morning.” Classes start early here in the rural plains of northeastern Colombia. Standing in the dark kitchen of his home, …

Familiy of Geese

One Thing Missing From This Generally Excellent Gender Pay Gap Explanation

Hei-ock Kim

Forbes August 3, 2016 By Tim Worstall, Contributor Over at Vox.com Sarah Kliff gives us a generally excellent discussion of what really causes the gender pay gap. Based on the work of Claudia Goldin the inequality of incomes is really a result of the gender unequal distribution of child care responsibilities in our society. As this is an explanation I’ve …

Two Kids at the Beach

CHILDREN AND GENDER INEQUALITY: EVIDENCE FROM DENMARK

Hei-ock Kim

NBER WORKING PAPER SERIES
CHILDREN AND GENDER INEQUALITY:
EVIDENCE FROM DENMARK
Henrik Kleven
Camille Landais
Jakob Egholt Søgaard
Working Paper 24219
http://www.nber.org/papers/w24219
NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH
1050 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
January 2018

Despite considerable gender convergence over time, substantial gender inequality persists in all
countries. Using Danish administrative data from 1980-2013 and an event study approach, we
show that most of the remaining gender inequality in earnings is due to children. The arrival of
children creates a gender gap in earnings of around 20% in the long run, driven in roughly equal
proportions by labor force participation, hours of work, and wage rates. Underlying these “child
penalties”, we find clear dynamic impacts on occupation, promotion to manager, sector, and the
family friendliness of the firm for women relative to men. Based on a dynamic decomposition
framework, we show that the fraction of gender inequality caused by child penalties has increased
dramatically over time, from about 40% in 1980 to about 80%in 2013. As a possible explanation
for the persistence of child penalties, we show that they are transmitted through generations, from
parents to daughters (but not sons), consistent with an influence of childhood environment in the
formation of women’s preferences over family and career

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The Impact of Equal Pay on Poverty and the Economy

Hei-ock Kim

Jessica Milli, Ph.D., Yixuan Huang, Heidi Hartmann Ph.D., and Jeff Hayes, Ph.D.
This briefing paper summarizes analyses of the 2014-2016 Current Population Survey Annual
Social and Economic supplement and uses statistical controls for labor supply, human capital,
and labor market characteristics to estimate: 1) how much women’s earnings and family incomes
would rise if working women were paid the same as comparable men (men who work the same
number of hours, are the same age, have the same educational attainment and urban/rural status
and live in the same region of the country); 2) how much women and their families lose because
women earn less than similarly qualified men; 3) how many children would benefit from the
increased earnings of their mothers; 4) how many children and families would be brought out of
poverty if women received equal pay; and 5) how much the economy as a whole suffers from
inequality in pay between women and men.