Supporting working mothers to balance their work and childcare responsibilities is a central objective of maternal and parental leave policies. Nearly all countries offer some forms of maternity and family leave programs for childbearing on a national basis. This chapter reviews various types of...

This paper documents that the employment of Asian Americans with no college education has been especially hard hit by the economic crisis associated with the Covid-19 pandemic. This cannot be explained by differences in demographics or in job characteristics, and the pattern does not apply to...

This paper documents that the employment of Asian Americans with no college education has been especially hard hit by the economic crisis associated with the Covid-19 pandemic. This cannot be explained by differences in demographics or in job characteristics. Asian American employment is also...

Prior to the racial integration of schools in the Southern United States, predominantly African American schools were also staffed almost exclusively by African American teachers, and teaching accounted for an extraordinarily large share of professional employment among Southern blacks. The...

Children cause large earnings drops for mothers but not fathers, a stylized fact known as the "child penalty" that explains a substantial portion of remaining gender income gaps. Can policy reduce the child penalty? We first document how changes in the child penalty over a long time horizon in...

I assess the impact of fully paid maternity leave on leave taking, continued employment, and promotion by exploiting a sudden expansion of paid leave from 6 to 12 weeks in the United States Air Force and Army. I estimate impacts under regression discontinuity and difference in differences...

An important underlying determinant of wage discrimination, as well as the gender wage gap is the way the labor market rewards individual physical attractiveness. This article surveys the extensive empirical literature of the effect of physical attractiveness on labor market outcomes. Particular...

Although the EU has been influential in the development of equalities legislation, Brexit would be unlikely to put these rights in jeopardy. Historically, the UK has led the way when it comes to women’s rights and workplace and family protections, and this will surely continue. The worry that...

Research investigating the relationship between firm performance and gender diversity has so far reported conflicting evidence: Some studies find firm performance to benefit from gender diversity, others find negative results or no effect at all. Taking this inconclusive evidence as a sign for...

In many countries, women are over-represented among low-wage employees, which is why a wage floor could benefit them particularly. Following this notion, we analyse the impact of the German minimum wage introduction in 2015 on the gender wage gap. Germany poses an interesting case study in this...