scholarly journals Male Earnings Inequality, Women's Employment and Family Income Inequality in Australia, 1982-2007

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Siobhan Austen ◽  
Gerry Redmond
Keyword(s):  
Income Inequality ◽  
Family Income ◽  
Earnings Inequality ◽  
Women's Employment ◽  
Women’S Employment

scholarly journals Changes in Couples' Earnings Following Parenthood and Trends in Family Earnings Inequality

Demography ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pilar Gonalons-Pons ◽  
Christine R. Schwartz ◽  
Kelly Musick
Keyword(s):  
Income Inequality ◽  
Assortative Mating ◽  
Turning Point ◽  
Women's Employment ◽  
Paid Work ◽  
Aggregate Level ◽  
Women’S Employment ◽  
Nationally Representative ◽  
Critical Turning Point

Abstract The growing economic similarity of spouses has contributed to rising income inequality across households. Explanations have typically centered on assortative mating, but recent work has argued that changes in women's employment and spouses' division of paid work have played a more important role. We expand this work to consider the critical turning point of parenthood in shaping couples' division of employment and earnings. Drawing on three U.S. nationally representative surveys, we examine the role of parenthood in spouses' earnings correlations between 1968 and 2015. We examine the extent to which changes in spouses' earnings correlations are due to (1) changes upon entry into marriage (assortative mating), (2) changes between marriage and parenthood, (3) changes following parenthood, and (4) changes in women's employment. Our findings show that increases in the correlation between spouses' earnings prior to 1990 came largely from changes between marriage and first birth, but increases after 1990 came almost entirely from changes following parenthood. In both instances, changes in women's employment are key to increasing earnings correlations. Changes in assortative mating played little role in either period. An assessment of the aggregate-level implications points to the growing significance of earnings similarity after parenthood for rising income inequality across families.

scholarly journals The Rising Instability of U.S. Earnings

2009 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 3-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Gottschalk ◽  
Robert Moffitt
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Income Inequality ◽  
Family Income ◽  
The United States ◽  
Earnings Inequality ◽  
Recent Period ◽  
Quarter Century ◽  
Earnings Instability ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Income Instability

The inequality of earnings and of family incomes in the United States has increased since the late 1970s. The large rise in earnings inequality between the 1970s and the 1990s could reflect either a rise in disparity of permanent incomes, a rise in earnings instability, or some portion of both. In this paper, we provide longitudinal measures that separate changes in income inequality into changes that permanently change income to new levels and those that only reflect transitory change. We refer to the latter as changes in “income instability” and discuss how the instability of individual earnings and family income in the United States has evolved— as whole as well as for different types of individuals and families—over the last quarter century. We consider alternative definitions of instability that have been proposed, and establish that all studies find that instability is considerably higher today than in the mid-1970s. This increase in instability is not a recent phenomenon. Earnings instability rose sharply in the late 1970s and early 1980s, then stabilized at these high levels through the recent period, although it may be increasing once again. We also discuss the factors that may be driving this increase in instability.

scholarly journals Family policy outcomes: Combining Institutional and Demographic Explanations of Women’s Employment and Earnings Inequality in OECD Countries, 1975-2005

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rense Nieuwenhuis
Keyword(s):  
Family Policy ◽  
Oecd Countries ◽  
Earnings Inequality ◽  
Policy Outcomes ◽  
Women's Employment ◽  
Family Policies ◽  
Women’S Employment ◽  
Employment Gap ◽  
Women's Earnings ◽  
Reconciliation Policies

Women’s employment and earnings, as well as earnings inequality, have been rising in OECD countries in recent decades. This dissertation answers questions pertaining to how family policies have facilitated women in combining motherhood and employment, and how women’s earnings have affected inequality among households. Based on well over a million person-level observations, this study covers 18 OECD countries and a period from 1975 to 2005.Work-family reconciliation policies were shown to reduce the employment gap between mothers and women without children, while policies financially supporting families with children enlarge this motherhood-employment gap. Very long periods of leave, however, negatively affect the employment of mothers. More educated mothers benefit more from reconciliation policies than the less educated. Women’s rising earnings were found to have attenuated inequality among households. Family policy arrangements that facilitate women’s employment not only contribute to smaller inequality within households, but also among households.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document