It’s sooo slooow: IFS on closing the GPG

The Institute for Fiscal Studies is running a massive study on inequality, funded by the Nuffield Foundation under the guidance of Nobel prizewinner Angus Deaton. The review will run for some time; its scope is admirably ambitious, covering themes such as family, employment, attitudes to inequality, tax, trade and several others. It is already a huge source of policy-relevant information, and promises to be a landmark. Naturally gender figures widely in the review as a whole, and the latest report, by Alison Andrew and colleagues, deals with gender inequality at work. It is called 'The more things change the more they stay the same'. The title is suitably wry; it…
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Claudia Goldin and greedy jobs

Writing the PP as a non-expert on gender and employment I was very impressed by the work of the American economist Claudia Goldin. Her extensive empirical analysis of the reasons for pay gaps illuminated issues such as the role of occupational segregation - including the very striking fact that countries known for getting closest to gender equality - the Scandinavians - showed high levels of segregation, with women piling into human-oriented services such as nursing. This surprised me, though it is of course partly due to the fact that in those egalitarian countries the financial penalty for nursing rather than banking is much lower. The choices seem sensible ones, if…
Read More

It’s sooo slooow: IFS on closing the GPG

The Institute for Fiscal Studies is running a massive study on inequality, funded by the Nuffield Foundation under the guidance of Nobel prizewinner Angus Deaton. The review will run for some time; its scope is admirably ambitious, covering themes such as family, employment, attitudes to inequality, tax, trade and several others. It is already a huge source of policy-relevant information, and promises to be a landmark. Naturally gender figures widely in the review as a whole, and the latest report, by Alison Andrew and colleagues, deals with gender inequality at work. It is called 'The more things change the more they stay the same'. The title is suitably wry; it…
Read More

Claudia Goldin and greedy jobs

Writing the PP as a non-expert on gender and employment I was very impressed by the work of the American economist Claudia Goldin. Her extensive empirical analysis of the reasons for pay gaps illuminated issues such as the role of occupational segregation - including the very striking fact that countries known for getting closest to gender equality - the Scandinavians - showed high levels of segregation, with women piling into human-oriented services such as nursing. This surprised me, though it is of course partly due to the fact that in those egalitarian countries the financial penalty for nursing rather than banking is much lower. The choices seem sensible ones, if…
Read More