Gender in Language and Gender in Employment

Astghik Mavisakalyan ()

ANU Working Papers in Economics and Econometrics from Australian National University, College of Business and Economics, School of Economics

Abstract: Women lag behind men in many domains. Feminists have proposed that sex-based grammatical gender systems in languages reinforce traditional conceptions of gender roles, which in turn contribute to disadvantaging women. This article evaluates the empirical plausibility of this claim in the context of the labour market outcomes of women. Based on a sample of over 100 countries, the analysis shows that places where the majority language is gender-intensive have lower participation rates of women in the labour force. Individual level estimates further underscore this finding and indicate a higher prevalence of genderdiscriminatory attitudes among speakers of gender-intensive languages.

JEL-codes: J16 J21 Z10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 30 Pages
Date: 2011-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem and nep-lab
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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https://www.cbe.anu.edu.au/researchpapers/econ/wp563.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Gender in Language and Gender in Employment (2015)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:acb:cbeeco:2011-563

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