From One to Three: China’s Motherhood Dilemma and Obstacle to Gender Equality

The implementation of China’s three-child policy has prompted considerable attention and discussion. From “one child” to “two-child” to “three-child,” the Chinese government has considered the macro population structure in previous reproductive policy adjustments while ignoring the difficulties and necessities of parenting. The child-rearing costs that should have been shared by the family and the state are left to be shouldered by the family alone. Gender equality and women’s development have lagged, while the traditional role of women and the sharing of family responsibilities between men and women have stagnated. The easing of the fertility policy will increase the frequency of childbirth and result in greater difficulties faced by women in the workplace. Childbirth negatively impacts women’s wages, and as its intensity continues to increase, so does the problem of maternal punishment. This study presents situations that illuminate the plight of Chinese mothers. Solving the motherhood dilemma cannot be achieved by making a mother choose between prioritizing herself or her child. Only by detaching privatization from motherhood, returning to public politicization, treating gender equality promotion as only the starting point, and strengthening social support and public service can the motherhood dilemma truly be resolved.

Gender Incidence in the Salary of Informal Workers for the Management of Socioeconomic Strategies

This research examined the problems experienced by women who work in the informal sector of the city of Riobamba due to receiving poor and lower incomes than men. The main objective was to analyze the influence that gender has on wages of women in this sector, to establish strategies that can promote more equitable development. Qualitative and quantitative approaches were used using inductive and deductive methods. Data were collected through a survey and analyzed using the Chi square test. The results showed that women's wages were dependent on their gender, conditioned by a sociocultural environment that has not evolved, especially in the informal sectors made up mostly of rural population. Also, the presence of child labor was evident, and wages could not cover the basic needs of women who identified as heads of household with family responsibilities of between three to five people. The strategy identified to promote equity in the recognition and value of fair work without distinction of gender was based on the following elements: the implementation of inclusion policies and control, training of young women in non-traditional trades, promotion of changes in traditional patterns in households, and policies to combat poverty with a gender focus for sustainable social development. Keywords: gender, equity, salary, strategies, socioeconomic, management. Resumen La investigación plantea la problemática que viven las mujeres que trabajan en el sector informal de la ciudad de Riobamba debido a su condición de género para percibir ingresos deficientes e inferiores a los hombres, el objetivo principal es analizar la incidencia que tiene el género en el salario de las mujeres de este sector para el establecimiento de estrategias que promuevan un desarrollo más equitativo. La metodología investigativa considera estudios analíticos, correlacionales, exploratorios, de campo, un enfoque cuali- cuantitativo, con métodos inductivos y deductivos, usando técnicas como la encuesta, considerado la relación de dependencia a través del Chi cuadrado para la comprobación de la hipótesis, como resultados principales se puede encontrar que la incidencia del género en los salarios de las mujeres es dependiente, condicionado por un ambiente sociocultural que no ha evolucionado sobre todo en los sectores informales conformados en su mayoría por población rural, se evidencia la presencia del trabajo infantil y salarios que no pueden cubrir las necesidades básicas de mujeres que se identifican como jefes de hogar con cargas familiares de entre 3 a 5 personas, se plantea como solución la estrategia para promover la equidad en el reconocimiento y puesta en valor del trabajo equitativo sin distinción de género basada en 5 elementos: la implementación de políticas de inclusión y control, la capacitación de las jóvenes en oficios no tradicionales, promoción de cambios de patrones tradicionales en los hogares, políticas de combate a la pobreza con enfoque de género para un desarrollo social sustentable. Palabras clave: género, equidad, salario, estrategias, socioeconómicas, gestión.

Sentiment and Prejudice

This article describes the evolution of Edgeworth’s thought on women’s wages and on the principle of “equal pay for equal work.” We first document Edgeworth’s early works on “exact utilitarianism” as an epistemic basis for his reflections upon women’s wages. Second, we review his first writings on women’s work and wages: early mentions in the 1870s, his book reviews published in the Economic Journal, and the substantial preface he wrote for the British Association for the Advancement of Science 1904 report on Women in Printing Trades. Third, we document his 1922 British Association presidential address in relation to the burgeoning literature on women’s work and wages within political economy at the time. Finally, we show that his 1923 follow-up article on women’s wages and economic welfare constitutes an update of his “aristocratical utilitarianism” in the post–World War I context.

Changes in the US Gender Gap in Wages in the 1960s

The 1960s witnessed landmark legislation that aimed to increase women's wages, including the Equal Pay Act of 1963, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, and the 1966 amendments to the Fair Labor Standards Act. Although the gender gap in pay changed little at the mean/median during the decade, our distributional analysis shows that women's wages converged sharply on men's below but diverged above the median. However, the bulk of women's relative pay gains are not explained by changes in observed attributes. Our findings suggest an important role for legislation in narrowing the gender gap in the 1960s.

PEREMPUAN DAN KARIER: PERBANDINGAN KESENJANGAN UPAH GENDER DI INDONESIA DENGAN NEGARA-NEGARA DI EROPA (STUDI KASUS: FINLANDIA, INGGRIS, PRANCIS, DAN JERMAN)

In some countries, women's wages lag behind men. The most recent study shows that most of the payments made by gender in wage growth are issued during the first ten years of workers in the labor market. Some part of the contribution of growth can be explained by investment in human capital and work mobility between men and women. In Europe, gender payments occur in several countries. This research will discuss the factors of gender payment in the UK, Finland, Germany, and France - which incidentally relates to gender payments by comparing other countries - with qualitative research methods.

The Constant Gap: Parenthood Premiums in Sweden 1968–2010

We know that parenthood has different consequences for men’s and women’s careers. Still, the research remains inconclusive on the question of whether this is mainly a consequence of a fatherhood premium, a motherhood penalty, or both. A common assumption is that women fall behind in terms of pay when they become mothers. Based on longitudinal data from the Swedish Level of Living Survey (LNU), and individual fixed-effects models, we examine the support for this assumption by mapping the size of parenthood effects on wages during the years 1968–2010. During this period, Swedish women’s labor supply increased dramatically, dual-earner family policies were institutionalized, and society’s norms on the gendered division of labor changed. We describe the development of parenthood effects on wages during this transformative period. Our results indicate that both genders benefit from a gross parenthood premium, both at the beginning of the period and in recent years, but the size of this premium is larger for men. Individual fixed-effects models indicate that the wage premium is mainly the result of parents’ increased labor market investments. Controlling for these, women suffer from a small motherhood penalty early in the period under study whereas parenthood is unrelated to women’s wages in later years and to men’s wages throughout the period. Neither for men nor for women do we find a statistically significant period change in the parenthood effects. Instead, patterns are remarkably stable over time given the radical changes in family policies and norms that took place during the period examined.

Assessment of women’s situation on the labour market in EU countries

The aim of the article is to analyse and evaluate the changes in women’s situation on the labour market of European Union countries in the years 2005–2018. The analysis focused on the economic activity of women and men and the following selected aspects of the labour market: the employment and unemployment rates and the relation between women and men’s wages. A hypothesis that women’s situation on the labour market improved, and the pay discrimination against women shrank in EU countries, has been formulated. The study utilised statistical data from the Eurostat Data Base. The evaluation of women’s situation was performed by means of a synthetic measure whose values were determined using the non-standard formula. That measure served as the basis for the linear ordering of EU countries according to the situation of women on the labour market. The study demonstrated that overall, women’s situation on the labour market improved in most EU countries in the analysed period. In all EU countries, the employment rate of women remains lower than the employment rate of men, and additionally, the former strongly varies throughout EU countries. The indicator which differentiates between the women’s and men’s labour markets to a large extent is the percentage of persons employed part-time. Part time employment is more popular in Western European countries and concerns women to a much greater extent than men. The study indicates that the levelling of women’s and men’s wages is taking place; nevertheless, women’s wages in nearly half of EU countries still do not exceed 80% of men’s average wages.

Do Hiring Practices Penalize Women and Benefit Men for Having Children? Experimental Evidence from Germany

Although observational studies from many countries have consistently shown that motherhood negatively affects women’s wages, experimental findings on its effect on the likelihood of being hired are less conclusive. Motherhood penalties in hiring have been reported in the United States, the prototypical liberal market economy, but not in Sweden, the prototypical social-democratic welfare state. Based on a field experiment in Germany, this study examines the effects of parenthood on hiring processes in the prototypical conservative welfare state. My findings indicate that job recruitment processes indeed penalize women but not men for having children. In addition to providing theoretical explanations for why motherhood penalties in hiring are particularly likely to occur in the German context, this study also highlights several methodological and practical issues that should be considered when conducting correspondence studies to examine labour market discrimination.

Sentiment and Prejudice: Francis Ysidro Edgeworth on Women's Wages

This paper describes the evolution of Edgeworth’s thought on women’s wages in context. We first document the early analyses of gender issues in Edgeworth’s 1890s reviews and in the substantial preface of Women in Printing Trades (1904). Second, we document the 1922 lecture in relation to the burgeoning literature on women’s work and wages that followed the First World War. Then, we show that his 1923 follow-up on women’s work and general welfare is both an answer to a specific interwar context, and a revival of his “aristocratical utilitarianism” he had advocated first in his 1879 book on “The Hedonical Calculus.”