A Structural Model of the Labor Market to Understand Gender Gaps among Marginalized Roma Communities

Salazar-Saenz, Mauricio ; Robayo-Abril, Monica

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: GENDER GAP;    LABOR MARKET;    LABOR FORCE PARTICIPATION;    ROMA;    MARGINALIZED ROMA;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-9398
RP-ID  :  WPS9398

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

This paper constructs and estimates ahousehold-level search model to analyze Roma spouses'utility maximization for leisure, home production, and work.The paper aims to explain labor market gender gaps in amarginalized Roma population with low labor marketparticipation rates (males 53 percent and females 17percent). The analysis uses data from the 2017 Regional RomaSurvey for six Western Balkan countries. The simulationresults show that the main source for gender differentialsin the labor market is the unequal opportunities in favor ofmales -- not gender preferences or differences in homeproduction productivity. Therefore, most of the genderdifferences in the labor market can be closed by providingwives the same labor market conditions as husbands.Counterfactual policy experiments show that policies thatincrease the frequency of receiving a job offer, decreasethe frequency of laying off workers, and reduce searchincrease Roma husbands' labor participation. Policiesthat equalize wages induces more wives to join the labormarket and husbands to withdraw from it. This outcomesignals that the wage gap is the dimension that deters thegreatest number of Roma wives from joining the labor market.