We analyze a large sample of participants in mixed-gender Rubik's Cube competitions. Focusing on participants who barely made or missed the cut for the second round in a competition, we examine their likelihood of joining another competition in the future. We find a significant gender...

We investigate how female representation impacts policymaking using the example of child care and new hand-collected data on local council elections in Bavaria. RDD estimations (mixed-gender races for last party-specific council seats) show that an additional female councilor accelerates the...

I use the 1993 and 2003 National Surveys of College Graduates to examine the higher exit rate of women compared to men from science and engineering relative to other fields. I find that the higher relative exit rate is driven by engineering rather than science, and show that 60% of the gap can...

This chapter reviews the growing body of research in economics which concentrates on the education gender gap and its evolution, over time and across countries. The survey first focuses on gender differentials in the historical period that roughly goes from 1850 to the 1940s and documents the...

Concerns about gender equality have jumped to the forefront of public debate in recent years, and Gender Economics is slowly affirming its place as a major field of study. This assessment examines where we are in terms of gender equality. It reviews the theoretical foundations that can explain...

Social attitudes toward women vary significantly across societies. This chapter reviews recent empirical research on various historical determinants of contemporary differences in gender roles and gender gaps across societies, and how these differences are transmitted from parents to children...

Powerful currents have reshaped the structure of families over the last century. There has been (i) a dramatic drop in fertility and greater parental investment in children; (ii) a rise in married female labor-force participation; (iii) a decline in marriage and a rise in divorce; (iv) a higher...

This paper updates the major study by Macpherson and Hirsch (1995) of the effect of the gender composition of occupations on female (and male) earnings. Using large representative national samples of employees from the Current Population Survey, cross-sectional estimates of the impact of...

This paper studies how targeted cash transfers to women affect their empowerment. We use a novel identification strategy to measure women's willingness to pay to receive cash transfers instead of their partner receiving it. We apply this among women living in poor households in urban Macedonia....

We test how a reduction in travel cost affects the rate and direction of scientific research. Using a fine-grained, scientist-level dataset within chemistry (1991-2012), we find that after Southwest Airlines enters a new route, scientific collaboration increases by 50%, an effect that is...