Social subsidies and marketization: The role of gender and skill

Arbeitspapier

This paper decomposes the differences in aggregate market hours between US and Europe across gender-skill groups and finds that low-skilled women are the biggest contributors to aggregate differences, with the exception of Nordic countries. We develop a model to account for the gender-skill differences in market hours across countries. Taxes, which reduce market hours in favor of leisure and home production, explain a substantial fraction of the differences in hours for Southern and Central European countries. Subsidized family care, which reduces home hours of women in favor of market hours, explains the different pattern of hours in Nordic countries. Low-skilled women are more responsive to policy because of their comparative advantage in producing home services and the corresponding market substitutes.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research ; No. 962

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity ; Fiscal Policy ; Time Allocation and Labor Supply
• Subject: Cross-country Differences in Market Hours ; Home Production ; Subsidies on Family Care

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Duval-Hernández, Robert ; Fang, Lei ; Ngai, Liwa Rachel
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung (DIW)
• (where): Berlin
• (when): 2018

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/176777
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:44 AM CET