The Double Disadvantage Reconsidered: Gender, Immigration, Marital Status, and Global Labor Force Participation in the 21st Century

2014 ◽  
Vol 48 (1_suppl) ◽  
pp. 335-376 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katharine M. Donato ◽  
Bhumika Piya ◽  
Anna Jacobs

Although women's representation among international migrants in many countries has risen over the last 100 years, we know far less about gender gaps in the labor force participation of immigrants across a wide span of host societies. Prior studies have established that immigrant women are doubly disadvantaged in terms of labor market outcomes in the U.S., Canada, and Israel. These studies suggest an intriguing question: Are there gender gaps in immigrant labor force participation across destinations countries? In this paper, we investigate the extent to which the double disadvantage exists for immigrant women in a variety of host countries. We also examine how marriage moderates this double disadvantage. For the U.S., although we find that immigrant women have had the lowest labor force participation rates compared to natives and immigrant men since 1960, marital status is an important stratifying attribute that helps explain nativity differences. Extending the analysis to eight other countries reveals strong gender differences in labor force participation and shows how marriage differentiates immigrant women's labor force entry more so than men's.

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 304-324
Author(s):  
Moshe Semyonov

This paper focuses on the relations between development and gender disparities in labor market outcomes in the era of globalization. Within a cross-national comparative framework, the article examines the relations between development and globalization and three aspects of gender-linked disparities (women's labor force participation, gender occupational differentiation, and gender pay gap) at two time points: 1990 and 2015. The data reveal patterns in the relationship between development, globalization, and each dimension of gender inequality. First, development but not globalization tends to increase women's labor force participation. Second, development is likely to reduce gender occupational segregation. But the effect is indirect; it is transmitted via the increased number of economically active women. Third, less gender occupational segregation does not necessarily mean greater occupational equality; high female labor force participation is likely to reduce women's likelihood of employment in high-status professional and managerial occupations. Fourth, gender occupational inequality appears to be one of the sources of a country's gender pay gap; the pay disparity between men and women tends to be greater in countries where gender occupational inequality is high. A model that summarizes the complex relations among development, globalization, and the various dimensions of gender-linked economic activity and inequality is proposed and discussed.


Author(s):  
William J. Collins ◽  
Michael Q. Moody

This article documents and explores black–white differences in US women’s labor force participation, occupations, and wages from 1940 to 2014. It draws on closely related research on selection into the labor force, discrimination, and prelabor market characteristics, such as test scores, that are strongly associated with subsequent labor market outcomes. Both black and white women significantly increased their labor force participation in this period, with white women catching up to black women by 1990. Black–white differences in occupational and wage distributions were large circa 1940; they have narrowed significantly since then as black women’s relative outcomes improved. Following a period of rapid convergence, the racial wage gap for women widened after 1980 in census data. Differences in human capital, which are rooted in the history of racial discrimination, are an empirically important underpinning of the black–white wage gap throughout the period studied.


Author(s):  
Manuela Stranges

AbstractThe aim of this paper is to explore the intergenerational transmission of female labor force participation from mothers to children. Using data collected by the European Social Survey from 2002 to 2018 (N = 118,219), we analyse four different samples of native and immigrant women and men in order to assess the relationship between working mothers and their daughters and sons' wives participation to the labour market. For both native and immigrant women, having had their mothers employed when the respondents were 14 was associated with higher probability they were employed at the time of survey. Similarly, for both native and immigrant men, having had their mothers employed when the respondents were 14 was associated with higher probability their wives were employed at the time of the survey. We concentrate our attention on the role of religion. We find that religiosity is negatively related to the participation of women in the labour market, with differences between those who had a working mother and those who had not. Results of some augmented models indicate that the intergenerational transmission of female labor force participation varies according to religious affiliation.


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