The aim of this paper is to analyze the factors underlying the gender gap in African electoral and inter-electoral political participation. Drawing on new data covering over 27,000 respondents from 246 regions in 20 emerging African democracies, the empirical findings suggest that while there is...

Using unique survey data from the Russian industrial city Taganrog in 1989 and 1998, we analyse changes in the gender division of labour among gainfully employed women and men, pre- and post-transition. In Soviet Taganrog, dual earner families predominated, but nevertheless men were usually...

Recent research has shown that women shy away from competition more often than men. We evaluate experimentally three alternative policy interventions to promote women in competitions: Quotas, Preferential Treatment, and Repetition of the Competition unless a critical number of female winners is...

Using a sample of 2,789 Swedish residents on working age, this paper analyzes long-term absences from work due to sickness. The database contains all compensated sickness spells in the period January 1986 to December 1991. Earlier studies of work absence due to sickness did not analyze multiple...

Long-term absenteeism due to sickness has been increasing in the past two decades. This has raised many questions about causes, financing, and policy measures to prevent further increases. Answering these questions is even more important in a society with an aging population, which is expected...

We study household decision making in a high-stakes experiment with a random sample of households in rural China. Spouses have to choose between risky lotteries, first separately and then jointly. We find that spouses’ individual risk preferences are more similar the richer the household and...

Many economic decisions are made jointly within households. This raises the question about spouses’ relative influence on joint decisions and the determinants of relative influence. Using a controlled experiment (on inter-temporal choice), we let each spouse first make individual decisions and...

We conducted a field experiment in a protected area to explore the effects of conformity to a social reference versus a comparable, but imposed, suggested donation. As observed before, we see visitors conforming to the changing social reference. On the other hand, the treatment in which we...

Empirical studies of intergenerational transfers usually find that bequests are equally divided among heirs while inter vivos gifts tend to be compensatory. Using the 1992 and 1994 waves of the Health and Retirement Study, we find that only 4% of parents who give, divide their gifts equally...