Ladies First? Firm-level Evidence on the Labor Impacts of the East Asian Crisis
In a crisis, do employers place the burden of adjustment disproportionately on female employees? Relying on household and labor force data, existing studies of the distributional impact of crises have not been able to address this question. This pa...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Policy Research Working Paper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2012
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/main?menuPK=64187510&pagePK=64193027&piPK=64187937&theSitePK=523679&menuPK=64187510&searchMenuPK=64187283&siteName=WDS&entityID=000158349_20110906103035 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/3552 |
| Summary: | In a crisis, do employers place the
burden of adjustment disproportionately on female employees?
Relying on household and labor force data, existing studies
of the distributional impact of crises have not been able to
address this question. This paper uses Indonesia's
census of manufacturing firms to analyze employer responses
and to identify mechanisms by which gender differences in
impact may arise, notably differential treatment of men and
women within firms as well as gender sorting across firms
that varied in their exposure to the crisis. On average,
women experienced higher job losses than their male
colleagues within the same firm. However, the aggregate
adverse effect of such differential treatment was more than
offset by women being disproportionately employed in firms
hit relatively less hard by the crisis. The 0 hypothesis
that there were no gender differences in wage adjustment is
not rejected. Analyzing how employer characteristics impact
labor market adjustment patterns contributes to the
understanding of who is vulnerable in volatile times. |
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