Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Using the 1996 panel of the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) longitudinal data, I examine the relationship between wives’ earnings relative to their husbands and labor force exits among married mothers with children under age 15. I find that primary provider wives are more likely to exit the labor force than equal earner wives. However, an interaction with other family income reveals that the relationship between the wife’s relative earnings and labor force exits varies, suggesting that at very high income levels where wives are the primary earners—where one might expect very low exit rates—exit rates are no lower, indeed may be somewhat higher, than for primary earners with somewhat lower family income.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: The main objective of this study is to examine the effects of individual characteristics, labor market sectors and the community (MSAs) characteristics on earnings of Chinese American women using the 1990 5 percent- PUMS data. The individual characteristics are age, educational attainment, English ability and labor market condition, and the MSA characteristics include core industrial dominance and the relative size of Asian American population. Guided by the perspectives from the human capital, labor market segmentation theory and human ecology, this study is an attempt to integrate both the individual and MSA variables via Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM). The multilevel results indicate that investment in human capital contributed to the earnings attainment of Chinese American women. Workers in core sectors tend to earn more than those in periphery sectors. While core industrial dominance contributes to the earnings attainment, the relative size of Asian population does not show any effect on earnings. The results also suggest that most of the variance in earnings lies in the individual characteristics.The limitations of the study are also discussed.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: We consider the redistributive effects of social security old age pensions as compared to the tendency for private pensions to exacerbate gender inequality while asset earnings compound racial inequality—effects that we documented in research on the retirement cohort of 1980-1981 (Hogan and Perrucci 1998). Then we suggest how changes in the past two decades might have increased or decreased gender and racial gaps in retirement earnings for younger cohorts. Our analysis of retirees extracted from AHEAD, CODA, HRS, and War Babies birth cohorts indicates some evidence of progress for white women and black men but little change in the general pattern of reproducing inequality in retirement. We find that cohort effects (left and right censoring) are generally more significant than what might at first appear to be temporal effects. Gender progress may be exaggerated by these effects, while racial progress may be under-estimated. In either case, however, there is no evidence of progress for black women--the truly disadvantaged. Furthermore, we find no evidence to suggest that we should reconsider our assertion (Hogan, Perrucci and Wilmoth 2000) that the privatization schemes currently being offered as alternatives to social security old age pensions will increase racial and gender inequality.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper seeks to explain the role of non-standard work arrangements in the sex pay gap among scientists and engineers by drawing on a nationally-representative dataset made up of almost 50,000 scientists and engineers. Categorizing non-standard arrangements according to their wages and provision of health and retirement benefits allowed us to rank order them from best to worst. Multivariate regression results failed to confirm our main hypothesis: the inclusion of variables indicating non-standard employment arrangements failed to explain any of the pay gap among scientists and engineers. Nevertheless, we found that the earnings gap varied in different nonstandard employment arrangements. Unlike in the general labor force, sex inequality was greater in the worst non-standard arrangements than in the best, and sex equality was greater in the best arrangements than in the worst. The overall pattern we demonstrate is that arrangements where pay gaps favored men have the most negative job characteristics, and women were overrepresented in them. Surprisingly, women fared well relative to men in two of the highest-quality non-standard arrangements: contract work and short-term contract work. We conclude by raising the following questions: since in the larger labor force men are substantially overrepresented in the high-quality contracting arrangement, what forces make sciences and engineering different in this regard? And why is the sex pay gap less problematic for contract workers in science and engineering than it is for standard-employment workers in science and engineering?

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Although purchases of household services are widely regarded as an adaptation to the rise in women’s paid employment, little is known about how working women and their partners allocate money to outsource domestic tasks. Drawing on the U.S. Consumer Expenditure Survey 1998, this study tests hypotheses based on theorizing that recognizes gender inequality between partners, the gender-typing of household tasks, and the differences between cohabiting and married unions. Although women’s earned income contributes to expenditures on “male” tasks like home repairs and gardening, it is significantly more important for “female” chores like cleaning, laundry and meal preparation. For male earnings, there are no differences by the gender-type of tasks, but the paychecks of cohabiting men, as compared to married men, translate into significantly greater spending on male chores and less spending on female ones.