Why do women experience a persistent drop in labor earnings upon becoming mothers, i.e. a ``child penalty"? We study a new mechanism: search frictions. We analyze data on job applications sent on a popular online platform linked with administrative data for 350,000 involuntarily unemployed...

Can effective policy implementation change political selection by inducing voters to prioritize leader competence over other traits, such as gender? We answer this question by examining the impact of a successful school-expansion program on the likelihood of women being elected to state...

In the last decades, the US has seen narrowing gender employment, wage, and education gaps. The labor market has also faced a shift from physical (“brawn”) to intellectual (“brain”) skill requirements. I rationalize this in a general equilibrium model using two key assumptions: (1) brain...

We use administrative tax data to analyze the cumulative, long-run effects of California’s 2004 Paid Family Leave Act (CPFL) on women’s employment, earnings, and childbearing. A regression-discontinuity design exploits the sharp increase in the weeks of paid leave available under the law. We...

Do gender disparities in academia reflect that female scholars are held to higher standards than males? We address this question by comparing the scientific merit of male and female academic economists who make the same career step. Across four domains - i.e. faculty positions, network...

The risk of ending up poor in old age is shaped at young ages and it is concentrated among women. To counteract old-age poverty, many countries redistribute income through the pension system. They often do so based on an individual's lifetime earnings, like US Social Security. In this paper, we...