Brown Bag seminar in Economics | Yoko Okuyama
Welcome to the Brown Bag Seminar in Economics organized by the Department of Economics, SSE. The seminar speaker is Yoko Okuyama, Uppsala University, who will present
"Gender wage gaps and household decisions"
(2023, with Erik Grönqvist, Lena Hensvik and Anna Thoresson)
Abstract
This study examines how a change in the couple pay gap impacts the reallocation of childcare time between parents, both theoretically and empirically. Using a Nash bargaining model with home production, we demonstrate that the impact arises from both changing the relative time cost and altering intra-household bargaining power. To test our theoretical prediction, we take advantage of a Swedish policy reform that has increased pay for a large, female-dominated occupation, specifically teachers, by a substantial and persistent margin. The reform has reduced the pay gap between the affected female teachers and their spouses by nearly 60 percent. As a result, their childcare time gap has shrunk by about one-third. Our findings underscore that policies targeting pay in female-dominated occupations can have far-reaching consequences and be a powerful tool for promoting equality within the household.
Yoko Okuyama is a researcher at Uppsala University, in the Department of Economics.
This seminar takes place at Stockholm School of Economics, Sveavägen 65, in room 350.
Please contact nicola.donohoe@hhs.se if you have any questions.