The Armistice of the Sexes: Gender Complementarities in the Production Function

Jonathan Ostry, Raphael Espinoza and Chris Papageorgiou ()

No 13792, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: Macroeconomic models have largely ignored the importance of gender diversity by assuming that male and female workers are perfectly substitutable in the aggregate production function. Whether this assumption is valid is an empirical question that this paper aims to answer by estimating the elasticity of substitution (ES) between the two types of labor. We apply linear and non-linear techniques to cross-country data at the aggregate level, to cross-country data at the sectoral level, and to firm-level data for the manufacturing sector in China. We find that women and men are far from being perfect substitutes: the ES is below 1 for the aggregate sample, between 1-2 for the sectoral sample, and between 2-3 at firm-level. We discuss why the ES may vary at different levels of aggregation and conclude on the implications of these results for growth accounting and for the gains from gender equality.

Keywords: Female labor force participation; Aggregate production function; Elasticity of substitution; Growth (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J24 O47 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-gen and nep-lma
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://cepr.org/publications/DP13792 (application/pdf)
CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:13792

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://cepr.org/publications/DP13792

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers Centre for Economic Policy Research, 33 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V 0DX.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().