Do Occupational Overwork Norms Discourage Workers from Using the Flexible Work Arrangements in the UK?
(w/ Senhu Wang)
Transition into parenthood leads to a rearrangement of time and resources within couples due to increased caretaking demands. Women often retreat from their paid labor depending on their husbands’ work arrangements, resulting in a decline in their relative economic position within the couple. Institutional support for work and family may reduce the within-couple disparities in the labor market outcomes, but without corresponding gender egalitarianism, it may be insufficient.
South Korea provides an interesting case where institutional support is strong, but gender norms are not egalitarian. We use an event study approach wih individual fixed effects from the longest and nationally representative panels of the Korean Labor and Income Panel Study.
We find that Korean women experience a decline in their share of couple earnings following first birth, which takes them more than 10 years to achieve parity regardless of their education level. Heterogeneity within gender exists, with highly educated women experiencing a smaller decline in their share of earnings than the less educated counterpart. However, work- family policy expansion grounded on traditional gender ideology resulted in sharper and prolonged decline in women’s share of earnings.
Results imply that expanding the benefits of work-family policies may result in temporary withdrawals from work by a selected group of women rather than promoting gender equality.
In this work, we explore the relationship between gendered allocation of household space and disparities in household activities performed by women and men. Building on existing literature, this study will examine household space as a medium for moderating gendered activities. We will use a novel survey design, using a 2-dimensional blueprint of a two-story house, to prompt respondents to envision their ideal household space and describe its use in relation to gendered activities.
** this work is supported by the Center for the Study of Inequality at Cornell University (2023-2024)