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For
Lawrence M. Kahn
Daniel Blau Kahn
Lisa Blau Kahn
Devaney Bennett
Maren Francine Kahn and Michael Joseph Kowalkowski
Henrik Francis Kowalkowski
Andrew Joseph Kowalkowski
With Love
In Memoriam
Our dear colleague, friend, and collaborator, Marianne A. Ferber, January 30, 1923 – May 11, 2013
The Economics of Women, Men, and Work, both the textbook and the field of study, have been deeply enriched by her contributions.
About the Authors
Francine D. Blau is Frances Perkins Professor of Industrial and Labor Relations and professor of economics at Cornell University. She is also a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) and a research fellow of the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). She received her Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University and her B.S. from the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University. Before returning to Cornell in 1994, she was for many years on the faculty of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. P rofessor Blau has served as president of the Society of Labor Economists (SOLE) and of the Labor and Employment Relations Association (LERA), vice president of the American Economic Association (AEA), president of the Midwest Economics Association (MEA), and chair of the AEA’s Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession (CSWEP). She is a fellow of the Society of Labor Economists, the American Academy of Political and Social Science, and the Labor and Employment Relations Association. In 2010, she received the IZA Prize for outstanding achievement in labor economics (the first female recipient) and, in 2017, the Jacob Mincer Award for lifetime contributions to the field of labor economics from SOLE. She was also the 2001 recipient of the Carolyn Shaw Bell Award from CSWEP for furthering the status of women in the economics profession. She is an associate editor of Labour Economics and was formerly an editor of the Journal of Labor Economics and an associate editor of the Journal of Economic Perspectives. She serves or has served on numerous editorial boards, including of the American Economic Review, the Journal of Labor E conomics, the Journal of Economic Perspectives, the ILR Review, Feminist Economics, Signs, and The Annals, among others. Professor Blau has written extensively on gender issues, wage inequality, immigration, and international comparisons of labor market outcomes. She has published widely in refereed journals and is the author of Equal Pay in the Office and of Gender, Inequality, and Wages and, with Lawrence Kahn, of At Home and Abroad: U.S. Labor Market Performance in International Perspective. She is also coeditor of The Economic and Fiscal Consequences of Immigration , The Declining Significance of Gender?, and Gender and Family Issues in the Workplace.
Anne E. Winkler is professor of economics and public policy administration at the University of Missouri–St. Louis (UMSL). She is also a research fellow at IZA (the Institute for the Study of Labor). She received her Ph.D. in economics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and her undergraduate degree in economics from Wesleyan University. She has been a faculty member at UMSL since 1989. She serves on the editorial boards of Social Science Quarterly and Journal of Labor Research. She previously served as second vice president of the Midwest Economics Association and as president of the St. Louis Chapter of the National Association for Business Economics (NABE). She also served as board member of the American Economic Association’s Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession (CSWEP). Her main areas of research interest are in the economics of gender, the economics of the family, and welfare and poverty. Her work has appeared in economics and broader social science journals including Journal of Human Resources, Research in Labor Economics, Monthly Labor Review, Demography, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, Journal of Urban Economics, Management Science, and IZA World of Labor.
A Note from the Authors
In publishing this eighth edition with Oxford University Press, we honor the memory and warmly acknowledge the enduring influence of our longtime coauthor and dear friend, Marianne A. Ferber. Marianne Ferber and Francine Blau collaborated on The Economics of Women, Men, and Work , the first-ever textbook on this topic, in the early 1980s. Anne Winkler joined with the third edition, and the book was coauthored by all three through the seventh edition, all of which were published by Prentice-Hall/Pearson. This is the first edition that does not bear Marianne Ferber’s name. We encourage readers to learn more about her remarkable life and professional contributions.*
It is our hope that Marianne Ferber’s legacy—her professional achievements, personal story, and long-lasting influence on this text—will inspire young women to pursue in life what is most meaningful to them and, for those pursuing a profession, to have the opportunity to rise to the highest echelons of their field.
FDB and AEW June 2017
*Committee on the Status of Women in Economics, “An Interview with the 2001 Carolyn Shaw Bell Award Co-recipients Marianne A. Ferber and Francine D. Blau,” CSWEP Newsletter (Fall 2002); and Francine D. Blau and Anne E. Winkler, “Remembering Marianne A. Ferber,” CSWEP Newsletter (Winter 2014), https://www.aeaweb.org/ about-aea/committees/cswep
Brief Contents
The US Gender Wage Ratio in an International Context 498
C omparable Worth in Australia 5 01
Understanding Low Fertility in Economically Advanced Countries 502
Conclusion | Q uestions for Review and Discussion | Suggested Readings | Key Terms 505
AUTHOR INDEX 5 07
SUBJECT INDEX 518
Preface
We wrote The Economics of Women, Men, and Work because we saw a need for a text that would acquaint students with the findings of research on women, men, and work in the labor market and the household. We are extremely gratified on the publication of the eighth edition to reflect that this belief was justified and hope that this fully revised and updated edition will serve as effectively as the earlier ones.
Overview of the Text
The book is written at a level that should both utilize and enhance students’ knowledge of economic concepts and analysis and do so in terms intelligible to those not versed in advanced theory. Even though we assume a knowledge of introductory economics on the part of the reader, an interested and determined individual wanting to learn more about the economic status of women compared to men could benefit considerably from the material offered here. The book also draws upon research in the other social sciences. The text, used in its entirety, is primarily intended for courses on gender from an economics perspective. Such a course may have a variety of names —Women in the Economy, Women in the Labor Market, Economics of Gender, and Work, Family, and Public Policy, to name a few. However, this book could be used to good advantage in interdisciplinary women’s studies courses as well as introductory-level courses in economic problems. Selected readings would also make a useful supplement to round out a general labor economics course or a course in the economics of the family. In addition, this book would serve as a useful reference work for those not familiar with the rapidly growing body of literature on women, men, and work as well as for practicing economists looking for a single volume on this topic.
We have prepared some materials for instructors to help you teach with the Eighth Edition, including answers to the end-of-chapter questions and a set of PowerPoint slides containing the figures from the book for use in lectures and assignments. You’ll find these materials and some additional teaching tips, such as how to teach more difficult concepts and ideas for supplementary assignments, on the Ancillary Resource Center found at www.oup-arc.com/blau. In addition, we offer a discussion of how the gender economics this course can enhance student learning in a chapter
1Francine D. Blau and Anne E. Winkler, “Women, Men, and the Economy,” in International Handbook on Teaching and Learning Economics, ed. Gail M. Hoyt and KimMarie McGoldrick (Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2012), 693–702.
entitled “Women, Men, and the Economy” published in the International Handbook on Teaching and Learning Economics. 1 Courses like this offer an opportunity for students to apply their microeconomic knowledge to gender-related policy issues and can be used to motivate useful discussions about data, research methods, and interpreting mixed research findings. Our handbook chapter also points to ways to fully engage students in the course material and offers suggestions about how to teach more difficult concepts as well as provides ideas for supplementary assignments, in addition to the end-of-chapter questions and Internet-based data exercises in the textbook.
Significant Features of the Eighth Edition
The eighth edition reflects the numerous changes in the labor market and in the family that have occurred in recent years. All data and tables have been updated, and discussions and references take into account the most recent research on each subject covered. As in the recent prior editions, questions are provided at the end of each chapter to review major concepts and to stimulate further discussion among students and instructors. In the seventh edition, we introduced Internet-based data exercises, and in this eighth edition, we have expanded that content.
Key updates in the eighth edition include the following:
• We highlight recent developments in the labor market and their consequences for women and men. These developments include the increasingly divergent outcomes for individuals and families by level of educational attainment, as well as the lasting impacts of the Great Recession, which began in December 2007 and lasted until June 2009, for both individuals and families. In Chapter 10, we provide new evidence on the sources of the existing gender wage gap as well as the reasons for its decline compared to previous years. In this discussion, we also present new research that looks at the size of and changes in the gender wage gap for those at the top, middle, and bottom of the wage distribution.
• We updated and expanded the content on differences in labor market outcomes by race and ethnicity (Chapters 5–8). In this regard, for example, in Chapter 6, which looks at employment difficulties for black men, we discuss the disproportionate impact of the criminal justice system on black men and their employment prospects. In chapters on the family (Chapters 13 and 14), we emphasize situations in which race differences are widening (the share currently married) as well as situations where they are narrowing (rates of unmarried births).
• I n keeping with changing demographics, in Chapter 13, the book incorporates an expanded discussion of same-sex marriage including its legalization throughout the United States. Chapter 13 also discusses the rising age at first marriage for all women and the rise in gray divorce (divorce among older women). Further, it examines changing dimensions of fertility, including the rise in serial cohabitation and multipartner fertility, the considerable recent decline in teen birth rates, as well as the leveling off in the proportion of births to unmarried women.
• New sections discuss “hot topics” in the news. In this eighth edition, we discuss the fall of all gender barriers in the military (women can now serve in combat on the front lines), the minimum wage campaigns sweeping the nation, the impact of Title IX on sexual harassment and sexual violence in schools, recent efforts
to combat employment discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, and action at the state level to extend paid leave to workers to help them balance work and family.
• The material in the international chapters has been reorganized so that Chapter 17 focuses on the world’s women, while Chapter 18 compares women’s economic status in the United States to that in other economically advanced countries. Chapter 17 emphasizes the dramatic changes occurring across the globe, including rapid declines in fertility in nearly all regions, as well as dramatic increases in women’s education in developing countries. We also discuss a major policy change in China: the official end of the one-child policy. Chapter 18 emphasizes key policy differences among economically advanced countries, such as the extent and generosity of paid family leave and childcare subsidies. International differences in policies and institutions help us to better understand the variation we see in women’s labor force participation, the gender pay gap, and the fertility rate.
Acknowledgments
We have both taught a course on women in the labor market for some time, and we wish to acknowledge that this book has benefited from the experience and the insights we have gained from our students. Over the years, a large and diverse group of colleagues, from a number of disciplines, have contributed material and provided valuable comments on the various editions. We warmly acknowledge their contributions, including a few who have since passed away, including our dear coauthor Marianne A. Ferber.
Deborah Anderson
Orley C. Ashenfelter, Princeton University
Nancy S. Barrett, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo
Andrea H. Beller, University of Illinois, Urbana–Champaign
Lourdes Beneria, Cornell University
Barbara R. Bergmann, American University
Gunseli Berik, University of Utah
Sherrilyn Billger, Illinois State University
Judy Bowman, Baylor University
Charles Brown, University of Michigan
Clair Brown, University of California, Berkeley
Michael Brun, University of Illinois, Urbana–Champaign and Illinois State University
Cheryl Carleton, Villanova University
Mary Corcoran, University of Michigan
Ann Davis, Marist College
Greg J. Duncan, University of California, Irvine
Margaret C. Dunkle, American Association of University Women, Educational Foundation
Cristina Echevarria, University of Saskatchewan
Paula England, New York University
Robert Fairlie, University of California, Santa Cruz
Belton M. Fleisher, Ohio State University
David Gillette, Truman State University
Claudia D. Goldin, Harvard University
Janet Gornick, Baruch College, City University of New York
Ulla Grapard, Colgate University
Shoshana Grossbard, San Diego State University
Sara Gundersen, Valparaiso University
Daniel S. Hamermesh, University of Texas, Austin
Francis Horvath, Bureau of Labor Statistics
Joan A. Huber, Ohio State University
Randy Ilg, Bureau of Labor Statistics
Thomas R. Ireland, University of Missouri–St. Louis
Debra Israel, Indiana State University
John Johnson IV, University of Illinois, Urbana–Champaign
Heather Joshi, City University, London
Joan R. Kahn, University of Maryland
Lawrence M. Kahn, Cornell University
Lisa Blau Kahn, Yale University
Charlene Kalenkoski, Texas Tech University
Kristen Keith, University of Toledo
Mahruq Khan, University of Wisconsin–La Crosse
Mark R. Killingsworth, Rutgers University
Andrew Kohen, James Madison University
Marcia Brumit Kropf, Girls Incorporated
Edith Kuiper, State University of New York at New Paltz
Fidan Kurtulus, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Pareena Lawrence, University of Minnesota
Phillip Levine, Wellesley College
Hilarie Lieb, Northwestern University
Susan J. Linz, Michigan State University
Shelly J. Lundberg, University of California, Santa Barbara
Elaine McCrate, University of Vermont
Kristin Mammen, Columbia University
Julie A. Matthaei, Wellesley College
Nara Mijid, Central Connecticut State University
Joan Moriarty, UNITE HERE
Catherine P. Mulder, John Jay College of Criminal Justice–CUNY
Kathryn Nantz, Fairfield University
Janet Norwood, Urban Institute
Elizabeth Peters, Urban Institute
Leila Pratt, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
