Leila Gautham

When unpaid cooking, cleaning and child care get a dollar value, income inequality in the US shrinks – but the gap has grown since 1965 Women’s unpaid work at home has declined much more than men’s contributions have increased.

Economists typically measure inequality by looking at income. But what happens when you factor in the dollar value of unpaid housework?

A new study suggests that accounting reduces the amount of inequality in America – but still shows inequality growing.
theconversation.com/when-unpaid-...

When unpaid cooking, cleaning and child care get a dollar value, US income inequality shrinks – but the gap has grown since 1965. Leila Gautham & Nancy Folbre in the JPubE report that declining household production implies inequality in living standards has expanded more than standard data suggest!

When unpaid cooking, cleaning and child care get a dollar value, income inequality in the US shrinks – but the gap has grown since 1965 Women’s unpaid work at home has declined much more than men’s contributions have increased.

theconversation.com/when-unpaid-...

@leilagautham.bsky.social

Also, inflation bites harder now than in the past--a larger share of total household consumption of goods and services is purchased in the market. No wonder people are feeling broke!

When unpaid cooking, cleaning and child care get a dollar value, income inequality in the US shrinks – but the gap has grown since 1965 Women’s unpaid work at home has declined much more than men’s contributions have increased.

We also wrote a more accessible summary for The Conversation here: theconversation.com/when-unpaid-cooking-cleaning-and-child-care-get-a-dollar-value-income-inequality-in-the-us-shrinks-but-the-gap-has-grown-since-1965-275499

Extended income at the bottom (the 10th percentile) actually↓ slightly, despite the 29 percent ↑ registered for market income.

Unlike market measures, extended measures imply non-trivial ↑ in bottom-half inequality (50-10 ratio).

Extended income and consumption are always more equal than their market counterparts. But the equalizing buffer has eroded over time.

The 90-10 log differential ↑ 33 log points for market income, but 51 log points for extended income (4 vs 17 log points for market and extended consumption).

We construct "extended income" and "extended consumption" by adding the replacement-cost value of household production (valued at housekeeper wages) to standard market measures, combining AHTUS, CPS ASEC, and CEX data over five decades.

Women's unpaid work ↓ from 37 to 24 hours/week between 1965 and 2018. Men's rose from 12 to 15. Overall 25% ↓ in value of household production between 1965-2018

Household production time and inequality in material living standards in the U.S., 1965–2018 We study how unpaid household production shapes trends in inequality in material living standards in the U.S. in the last five decades. We construct e…

New paper out in the Journal of Public Economics @jpube.bsky.social w @nancyfolbre.bsky.social! 🧵

What happens to U.S. inequality trends when you add the imputed $ value of household production to market income and consumption?

Open access: sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047272726000186

New working paper!⏰
“Not All Leisure Is Created Equal: Income-Induced Constraints on the Enjoyment of Leisure”
✍️ @leilagautham.bsky.social Clemens Hetschko & Peter Howley

The paper demonstrates that higher income enhances the enjoyment individuals derive from leisure.
🔗 www.ifo.de/en/cesifo/pu...

The Underestimated “Price of Parenting” Even a low-ball estimate of the cost of time shows just how misleading an estimate based only on money expenditures really is.

The private cost of children in the U.S. is at least twice as high as conventional estimates suggest.

#feministeconomics

www.dollarsandsense.org/the-underest...

The gender pay gap in South Africa: Firms, formality and churn Half of South Africa’s gender pay gap comes from women sorting into low-paying firms, with low formality and high churn being key to understanding this dynamic.

🆕 The gender pay gap in South Africa: Firms, formality and churn

Today on VoxDev, Ihsaan Bassier (@uniofsurrey.bsky.social) & @leilagautham.bsky.social (@universityofleeds.bsky.social) discuss the dynamics of the gender pay gap in South Africa: voxdev.org/topic/labour...

The firm-pay gender gap and formal sector churn over the life cycle We find that women sorting into lower paying firms explains nearly half of the gender pay gap in South Africa. Using matched employer-employee panel d…

Policy: To close the pay gap, don’t *just* focus on types of jobs — focus on *firms*.

Support women’s access to high-paying firms, expand childcare & learn from the public sector.

Otherwise, the gap keeps rebuilding itself, one job move at a time.

Paper: shorturl.at/bFPas

Why is firm sorting so important in SA? We think poorer countries have a smaller formal sector, wider dispersion in firm premia, and a bigger firm-pay gender gap. We show correlations from regional SA data.

Importantly, women who are continuously employed (ie "stayers") switch firms just as often as men — but don’t move *up* as much.

In their 40s and 50s, that changes: once care burdens ease, women start making *more* upward moves than men, once these constraints are released.

Interestingly, churn (moving in and out of employment) is common — but men and women do it at similar rates. Women just land in lower-paying sectors such as education, retail, or personal care, and in lower-paying firms *within* sectors.

The gap isn’t mainly about occupations or even bargaining within firms — it’s about women being firms that pay *all* workers less.

Using tax data on the full formal workforce, we find the gender gap in "firm pay” grows rapidly during women’s 30s — child-rearing years — then narrows later.

Why are women paid less than men? New research in South Africa shows the company you work for makes the biggest difference A big part of the explanation for why women are paid less than men is the companies they work for.

We ask: Why do South African women earn less than men?
~Half the gap is due to women "sorting" into lower-paying firms, beginning in their late 20s.

New in JDE w/ @ihsaanbassier.bsky.social . Conversation piece: