Economics Seminar- Sena Coskun

KOÇ UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF ADMINISTRATIVE SCIENCES AND ECONOMICS ECONOMICS SEMINAR Speaker: Sena Coskun-FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg itle: Convergence Almost Nowhere: Employment Volatility and the Family Channel (with Titan Alon and Jane Olmstead-Rumsey) Date: 11 January 2024- Thursday Location: CASE 127 Time: 17:30-18:45 Abstract: Countries with high female labor force participation exhibit larger differences in cyclical volatility for men and women. While gender convergence occurs across many dimensions such as employment, occupation, and pay, cyclicality of employment and hours actually diverges. We think of this fact as the result of an active within-family insurance mechanism: men and women sort into jobs with different business cycle risks in order to smooth out their consumption around business cycles. We confirm this hypothesis by showing a higher degree of sorting among married people compared to single people. Our quantitative model shows that part of the gender pay gap can be explained by this sorting which helps families to smooth out their income stream by paying an insurance price: lower female earnings.

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