Gender Segregation at Work over Business Cycle—Evidence from Selected EU Countries

Mariola Piłatowska () and Dorota Witkowska
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Mariola Piłatowska: Department of Econometrics and Statistics, Faculty of Economics, Nicolaus Copernicus University, 87-100 Toruń, Poland
Dorota Witkowska: Department of Finance and Strategic Management, Faculty of Management, University of Lodz, 90-136 Lodz, Poland

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 16, 1-19

Abstract: In this paper, we investigate whether gender employment rate responses to upward and downward fluctuations in the business cycle are symmetric and whether these responses differ depending on gender employment segregation in sectors and on different type of welfare states using the Esping-Andersen’s classification. We use the VAR model both in linear and non-linear (asymmetric) specification of GDP shocks and impulse response function. We find no convincing evidence of discouraged worker effect as it occurs in neither country fully, which suggests not hidden unemployment but rather the phenomenon of involuntary part-time workers becoming more common with the increase of precarious employment. Furthermore, we find that the pattern of gender employment adjustments to GDP fluctuations indicates that the gender sectoral segregation is a deeply entrenched feature within given economic sectors (construction, education, and accommodation) in all studied countries (Germany, Poland, and Portugal). Hence, this stagnation of gender segregation contributes to the preservation of gender pay differentials in spite of many years of equal pay legislation in the EU members.

Keywords: gender employment segregation; business cycle fluctuations; linear and non-linear VAR model; impulse response function (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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