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The Contribution of Girls’ Longer Hours in Unpaid Work to Gender Gaps in Early Adult Employment: Evidence from Ethiopia, India, Peru and Vietnam

Year: 2022

Type: article

Abstract: Across many countries, girls perform more unpaid work than boys. This article shows how the time young women and girls spend in unpaid household work contributes to the gender pay gap that is already evident by age 22. The study analyzes employment participation, type of employment, and wages using five waves of the Young Lives longitudinal survey for Ethiopia, India, Peru, and Vietnam. Spending longer hours in unpaid household work in adolescence positively predicts later employment participation but has a scarring effect in negatively predicting job quality (that is a job with a private or public organization) and hourly earnings, particularly for women. Blinder–Oaxaca decompositions of the gender wage gap show young women’s penalty for past household work is due to longer hours of such work rather than a higher penalty for women for a given amount of unpaid work.

Source: Feminist Economics

DOI: 10.1080/13545701.2022.2084559

Authors: Fiona Carmichael, Christian Darko, Shireen Kanji, Nicholas Vasilakos

Institutions: University of Birmingham, Brunel University of London, University of East Anglia

Language: English

Topic: Gender, Labor, and Family Dynamics

Subfield: Gender Studies

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDGs: Gender equality, Decent work and economic growth, Reduced inequalities, No poverty

Open Access status: green

OpenAlex ID: W4286491799