This paper shows that marital status and gender crucially impact whether individuals receive certain types of on-the-job training. Using data from the British Household Panel Survey, we show robust evidence that when training is self-financed, married workers have significantly lower participation rates, whereas women have higher rates. The correlation between demographic characteristics and the likelihood of receiving employer-sponsored training is instead much weaker. We rationalize the relationship between training incidence and marital status with a simple two-period collective model of the household with limited commitment, where contemporaneous training decisions affect future bargaining power within the household. The core prediction of the model is confirmed empirically: the likelihood to participate in self-financed on-the-job training is negatively affected by higher levels of (a proxy for) intra-household bargaining power of the spouse of the individual. The results suggest there is scope for policy to increase workers' training participation rates by targeting individuals with weaker bargaining power within the household.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with đź’™ for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.