Do family policies reduce gender inequality? Evidence from 60 years of policy experimentation

Kleven, Henrik Jacobsen, Landais, Camille ORCID: 0000-0002-9534-680X, Posch, Johanna, Steinhauer, Andreas and Zweimüller, Josef (2024) Do family policies reduce gender inequality? Evidence from 60 years of policy experimentation. American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 16 (2). 110 - 149. ISSN 1945-7731

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Abstract

Do family policies reduce gender inequality in the labor market? We contribute to this debate by investigating the joint impact of parental leave and childcare, using administrative data covering Austrian workers over more than half a century. We start by quasi-experimentally identifying the causal effects of all family policy reforms since the 1950s on the full dynamics of male and female earnings. We then map these causal estimates into a decomposition framework to compute counterfactual gender inequality series. Our results show that the enormous expansions of parental leave and childcare have had virtually no impact on gender convergence.

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	https://www.aeaweb.org/journals/pol
Additional Information:	© 2024 American Economic Association
Divisions:	Economics
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HB Economic Theory
JEL classification:	D - Microeconomics > D6 - Welfare Economics > D63 - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J1 - Demographic Economics > J13 - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J1 - Demographic Economics > J16 - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J3 - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs > J31 - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials by Skill, Training, Occupation, etc. J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J3 - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs > J32 - Nonwage Labor Costs and Benefits; Private Pensions
Date Deposited:	02 Dec 2022 11:42
Last Modified:	16 Nov 2024 19:48
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/117492

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