A Life Cycle Hypothesis on Gender Differences in Job Matching in the US

2003 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary

• Project/Area Number: 13630047
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: 経済政策(含経済事情)
• Research Institution: Otaru University of Commerce
• Principal Investigator: OMORI Yoshiaki Otaru University of Commerce, Faculty of Commerce, Professor, 商学部, 教授 (10272890)
• Project Period (FY): 2001 – 2003
• Keywords: gender / job matching / rebound / life cycle / marriage / child rearing / hazard

Research Abstract

Because investments in job matching, like investments in human capital, are important determinants of the wage growth, it is important to study determinants of their gender differences. Investments in job matching, if successful, result in the worker's job-to-job (JJ) transition. The worker makes a job-to-nonemployment (JN) transition if little investments in job matching are made to preempt non-economic quits due to housework and rearing children under age 6 after marriage, layoffs, and discharges or investments fail. This study shows that employed women's JJ (JN) transitions do not change monotonically with age, but decrease (increase) by marriage and rearing of a child under age 6. When the child's age reaches the school age, however, women's investments in job matching rebound : JJ (JN) transitions increase (decrease). The study uses a popular US micro data set, the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. In addition to usual explanatory variables, time-varying explanatory variables related to rebound, such as marital status, spouse's income, the number and age of children, characteristics of area of residence, previous career interruptions, are used. The semiparametric maximum likelihood estimation of a competing risks model for JJ and JN transitions, which also controls for unobserved individual-specific heterogeneity, shows that the average man has higher JJ and lower JN hazards than the average woman when only the usual explanatory variables are included, but the average man has higher JJ and JN hazards than the average woman when the rebound-related explanatory variables are added. Decomposing gender differences in the predicted hazards into the characteristics effects, the coefficient effects, and unexplained effects, the study finds an important role marriage and child rearing play in explaining the gender differences. Comparing the predicted probabilities of JJ and JN transitions by marital status, the number and age of children, and spouse's income, the study finds the rebound effect for employed women, but not for employed men,