The Impact of Female Labour Force Participation on Household Income Inequality in Switzerland

Abstract

This contribution investigates the link between female labour force participation and household income inequality using data from the Swiss Household Panel (2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)(2010)(2011)(2012)(2013)(2014). Through index decomposition analyses, we find that female labour force participation has slightly attenuated household income inequality over time. Women's entry into the labour market, higher work percentages within part-time work -but not the shift from part-time to full-time work -and the weak correlation in partner's earnings have contributed to this effect. Keywords: female labour force participation, income inequality, part-time work, index decomposition, household types Erwerbstätigkeit der Frauen und Ungleichheit der Haushaltseinkommen in der SchweizZusammenfassung: Dieser Beitrag untersucht den Zusammenhang zwischen der Erwerbsbeteiligung der Frauen und der Ungleichheit der Haushaltseinkommen anhand der Daten des Schweizer Haushalt-Panels (2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)(2010)(2011)(2012)(2013)(2014)

Do Opposites Attract? Educational Assortative Mating and Dynamics of Wage Homogamy in Switzerland, 1992–2014

“…that assortative mating in earnings has not only increased in the lower part of the distribution, but to a similar extent also in the upper part. The analysis using correlation coefficients comes to a consistent conclusion (Kuhn and Ravazzini 2017). The rank-order correlation (Spearman correlation) is positive for hourly wages and increases slightly over time.…”

“…With increased homogamy at the top and at the bottom of the distribution, we found support for wage polarisation. Even if these results appear worrisome from the perspective of inequality at the societal level, further research shows that consequences of assortative mating in Switzerland are small and have not lead to rising income inequality (Kuhn and Ravazzini 2017).…”

Who Partners Up? Educational Assortative Matching and the Distribution of Income in New Zealand

“…These conditional randomisations give us an estimate of the role of sorting on these observed characteristics. Our conditional randomisations are: As in Kuhn and Ravazzini (2017), we also provide some approximate estimate of the potential of assortative matching on the distribution of income by assuming extreme levels of assortative matching. We sort the population first on education and then on income bands, i.e.…”

“…Finally, we follow Kuhn and Ravazzini (2017) and consider two counterfactual distributions that assume extreme level of assortative matching. We sort individuals in couples based on our ordinal measure of education and income (income bands).…”

“…Indeed, our method can be interpreted as representing an accounting approach that can only be regarded as a first-order approximation of the effect of assortative matching on the distribution of income. However, other recent work, such as Eika, Mogstad and Zafar (2014), Greenwood, Guner, Kocharkov and Santos (2014) and Kuhn and Ravazzini (2017) takes the same approach.…”