Development Economics II Instructor: Prof Berta Esteve ...
Introduction to the Economics of Gender Instructor: Prof Berta Esteve-Volart Department of Economics, York University
ECON 3709 Technological progress and the well-being of women ECON 3709 Fall 2010
1
Goldin and Katz (2000) • Oral contraceptive introduced in the US in 1960 • By 1965, 40% of young married women on the pill • Widely available to young unmarried women by law in late 1960s and 1970s, when states lowered age of majority and granted youth rights of adults (voting age 18) (in Canada, it became legal as birth control method in 1969) ECON 3709 Fall 2010
2
• Change of women’s career decisions at the same time • Pill reduced uncertainty and gave female control of fertility • Cost of a long-term investment such as law degree or MBA reduced ÆIt became easier to delay marriage for career reasons ECON 3709 Fall 2010
3
• Besides pill, many changes going on late 1960s and early 1970s – Resurgence of feminism – Changes in social norms – Abortion reform
• Changes in career investment:
ECON 3709 Fall 2010
4
ECON 3709 Fall 2010
5
• Sharp break around 1970 • Age at first marriage: – cohort born in 1950: fraction married before 22 was 0.38 – cohort born in 1957: 0.21 – However no change for college graduate women born from 1940 to 1950
• While there had been changes in fertility in other periods, not accompanied by career changes ECON 3709 Fall 2010
6
ECON 3709 Fall 2010
7
Out-of-wedlock childbearing (Akerlof, Yellen and Katz 1996) • Out-of-wedlock birth rate in US • In 1965 - Black: 24%, White: 3.1% • In 1990 - Black: 64%, white: 18% • Social concern because of single parent family’s greater difficulty
ECON 3709 Fall 2010
8
• If it is easier to avoid unwanted pregnancy than before due to pill and abortion, why have out-of-wedlock births increased?
• Most of the increase is due to decline of “shotgun marriage”
ECON 3709 Fall 2010
9
• As late as late 1960s, social norm was if pregnancy then marriage • For whites, shotgun marriage declined with – female contraception for unmarried women – Legalization of abortion
• Both have shifted out the frontier of available choices ECON 3709 Fall 2010
10
ECON 3709 Fall 2010
11
ECON 3709 Fall 2010
12
• From late 1960s to early 1980s: • • • • • •
Decline of marriage Lower fertility rates Rise of out-of-wedlock births Higher abortion rates Greater use of the pill Lower shotgun marriage rates
ECON 3709 Fall 2010
13
• Technological innovation creates winners and losers • Example: development of yield-increasing variety of wheat lowers wheat prices and benefits consumers, but farmers who fail to adopt this variety will suffer from lower revenue
ECON 3709 Fall 2010
14
• Think of women as farmers here, and of the pill as technological advancement, some women adopt it, others do not • Development of pill lowers cost of premarital sex (pregnancy less likely)
ECON 3709 Fall 2010
15
• Intuition of the model: • Imagine there are women who have positive cost of pre-marital pregnancy, and women who have a negative cost • All men are the same • Before pill/abortion: men commit to marry woman if unwanted pregnancy (social norm) • With pill/abortion: men can commit or not • Women can ask for commitment or not ECON 3709 Fall 2010
16
• Equilibria: • Before pill/abortion: • no woman with positive cost of pregnancy engages in pre-marital sex without commitment (otherwise pregnancy likely) • The same happens with women with negative cost of pregnancy: a man can do no better because he would also need to commit if his partner were a woman with positive cost of pregnancy Æall women ask for commitment ÆShotgun marriage when pregnancy happens ECON 3709 Fall 2010
17
• With pill/abortion: • women with positive cost of pregnancy do not need commitment (even if he commits, no cost of commitment, because she would get abortion) • Women with negative cost of pregnancy now know that if they ask for commitment, man will exit and find a woman with positive cost of pregnancy Æmore competition ÆShe asks no commitment (otherwise he leaves) ÆNo women ask for commitment ÆNo shotgun marriage ECON 3709 Fall 2010
18
• Women with positive cost of pregnancy adopt pill and are better off (no unwanted pregnancy) • Women with negative cost of pregnancy do not adopt pill and are worse off (pregnant without partner having committed; some cases abortion happens)
ECON 3709 Fall 2010
19
• Empirical evidence: • A model like this can explain the increase in out-of-wedlock fertility, as well as lower shotgun marriage and higher use of pill and abortion
ECON 3709 Fall 2010
20
Greenwood, Seshadri & Yorukoglu (2005) • Does technological advance in the household explain rise in US female labour force participation? • In 1890, only 24% of houses had running water, none had central heating • In 1900, 98% of HHs used a 12 cent scrubboard to wash clothes ECON 3709 Fall 2010
21
• Laundry – by hand: 4 hours, 4-5 hours to iron old style – By electrical machine: 41 minutes, iron 1 h-75 minutes
ECON 3709 Fall 2010
22
ECON 3709 Fall 2010
23
• Housework for average HH: • In 1900, 58 hours a week • In 1975, 18 hours a week
• Paid domestic work declined
ECON 3709 Fall 2010
24
ECON 3709 Fall 2010
25
Sex ratios 1. Amartya Sen (1990) • • • • • •
Ratio women to men: Europe and North America: Approximately equal to 1.05 But: In South Asia, West Asia, and China: as low as 0.94, or even lower
ECON 3709 Fall 2010
26
• At birth, boys outnumber girls everywhere in the world, by much the same proportion—there are around 105 or 106 male children for every 100 female children • But after conception, biology seems on the whole to favor women: women live for longer if similar nutritional and medical attention and general health care ÆDue to female biological advantages in resisting disease ECON 3709 Fall 2010
27
• Great disparities in female-to-male ratio within third world: • Sub-Saharan Africa: 1.02 • Southeast Asia and East Asia (excluding China): 1.01 • Even within a country - India: • Punjab and Haryana states: 0.86 • Kerala state: 1.03 • How many women are “missing”? ECON 3709 Fall 2010
28
• If China had ratio of North America, 1.05, there would be 50 more million women • In whole world, missing women calculated like this: 100 million women
ECON 3709 Fall 2010
29
2. Almond and Edlund (2008) Using data from the U.S. Census 1) White offspring sex ratios
ECON 3709 Fall 2010
30
2) U.S.-born children to Chinese, Koreans, Asian Indians in the U.S.
ECON 3709 Fall 2010
31
ECON 3709 Technological progress and the well-being of women ECON 3709 Fall 2010
1
Goldin and Katz (2000) • Oral contraceptive introduced in the US in 1960 • By 1965, 40% of young married women on the pill • Widely available to young unmarried women by law in late 1960s and 1970s, when states lowered age of majority and granted youth rights of adults (voting age 18) (in Canada, it became legal as birth control method in 1969) ECON 3709 Fall 2010
2
• Change of women’s career decisions at the same time • Pill reduced uncertainty and gave female control of fertility • Cost of a long-term investment such as law degree or MBA reduced ÆIt became easier to delay marriage for career reasons ECON 3709 Fall 2010
3
• Besides pill, many changes going on late 1960s and early 1970s – Resurgence of feminism – Changes in social norms – Abortion reform
• Changes in career investment:
ECON 3709 Fall 2010
4
ECON 3709 Fall 2010
5
• Sharp break around 1970 • Age at first marriage: – cohort born in 1950: fraction married before 22 was 0.38 – cohort born in 1957: 0.21 – However no change for college graduate women born from 1940 to 1950
• While there had been changes in fertility in other periods, not accompanied by career changes ECON 3709 Fall 2010
6
ECON 3709 Fall 2010
7
Out-of-wedlock childbearing (Akerlof, Yellen and Katz 1996) • Out-of-wedlock birth rate in US • In 1965 - Black: 24%, White: 3.1% • In 1990 - Black: 64%, white: 18% • Social concern because of single parent family’s greater difficulty
ECON 3709 Fall 2010
8
• If it is easier to avoid unwanted pregnancy than before due to pill and abortion, why have out-of-wedlock births increased?
• Most of the increase is due to decline of “shotgun marriage”
ECON 3709 Fall 2010
9
• As late as late 1960s, social norm was if pregnancy then marriage • For whites, shotgun marriage declined with – female contraception for unmarried women – Legalization of abortion
• Both have shifted out the frontier of available choices ECON 3709 Fall 2010
10
ECON 3709 Fall 2010
11
ECON 3709 Fall 2010
12
• From late 1960s to early 1980s: • • • • • •
Decline of marriage Lower fertility rates Rise of out-of-wedlock births Higher abortion rates Greater use of the pill Lower shotgun marriage rates
ECON 3709 Fall 2010
13
• Technological innovation creates winners and losers • Example: development of yield-increasing variety of wheat lowers wheat prices and benefits consumers, but farmers who fail to adopt this variety will suffer from lower revenue
ECON 3709 Fall 2010
14
• Think of women as farmers here, and of the pill as technological advancement, some women adopt it, others do not • Development of pill lowers cost of premarital sex (pregnancy less likely)
ECON 3709 Fall 2010
15
• Intuition of the model: • Imagine there are women who have positive cost of pre-marital pregnancy, and women who have a negative cost • All men are the same • Before pill/abortion: men commit to marry woman if unwanted pregnancy (social norm) • With pill/abortion: men can commit or not • Women can ask for commitment or not ECON 3709 Fall 2010
16
• Equilibria: • Before pill/abortion: • no woman with positive cost of pregnancy engages in pre-marital sex without commitment (otherwise pregnancy likely) • The same happens with women with negative cost of pregnancy: a man can do no better because he would also need to commit if his partner were a woman with positive cost of pregnancy Æall women ask for commitment ÆShotgun marriage when pregnancy happens ECON 3709 Fall 2010
17
• With pill/abortion: • women with positive cost of pregnancy do not need commitment (even if he commits, no cost of commitment, because she would get abortion) • Women with negative cost of pregnancy now know that if they ask for commitment, man will exit and find a woman with positive cost of pregnancy Æmore competition ÆShe asks no commitment (otherwise he leaves) ÆNo women ask for commitment ÆNo shotgun marriage ECON 3709 Fall 2010
18
• Women with positive cost of pregnancy adopt pill and are better off (no unwanted pregnancy) • Women with negative cost of pregnancy do not adopt pill and are worse off (pregnant without partner having committed; some cases abortion happens)
ECON 3709 Fall 2010
19
• Empirical evidence: • A model like this can explain the increase in out-of-wedlock fertility, as well as lower shotgun marriage and higher use of pill and abortion
ECON 3709 Fall 2010
20
Greenwood, Seshadri & Yorukoglu (2005) • Does technological advance in the household explain rise in US female labour force participation? • In 1890, only 24% of houses had running water, none had central heating • In 1900, 98% of HHs used a 12 cent scrubboard to wash clothes ECON 3709 Fall 2010
21
• Laundry – by hand: 4 hours, 4-5 hours to iron old style – By electrical machine: 41 minutes, iron 1 h-75 minutes
ECON 3709 Fall 2010
22
ECON 3709 Fall 2010
23
• Housework for average HH: • In 1900, 58 hours a week • In 1975, 18 hours a week
• Paid domestic work declined
ECON 3709 Fall 2010
24
ECON 3709 Fall 2010
25
Sex ratios 1. Amartya Sen (1990) • • • • • •
Ratio women to men: Europe and North America: Approximately equal to 1.05 But: In South Asia, West Asia, and China: as low as 0.94, or even lower
ECON 3709 Fall 2010
26
• At birth, boys outnumber girls everywhere in the world, by much the same proportion—there are around 105 or 106 male children for every 100 female children • But after conception, biology seems on the whole to favor women: women live for longer if similar nutritional and medical attention and general health care ÆDue to female biological advantages in resisting disease ECON 3709 Fall 2010
27
• Great disparities in female-to-male ratio within third world: • Sub-Saharan Africa: 1.02 • Southeast Asia and East Asia (excluding China): 1.01 • Even within a country - India: • Punjab and Haryana states: 0.86 • Kerala state: 1.03 • How many women are “missing”? ECON 3709 Fall 2010
28
• If China had ratio of North America, 1.05, there would be 50 more million women • In whole world, missing women calculated like this: 100 million women
ECON 3709 Fall 2010
29
2. Almond and Edlund (2008) Using data from the U.S. Census 1) White offspring sex ratios
ECON 3709 Fall 2010
30
2) U.S.-born children to Chinese, Koreans, Asian Indians in the U.S.
ECON 3709 Fall 2010
31
