Childhood Environment and Gender Gaps in Adulthood

We show that differences in childhood environments shape gender gaps in adulthood by documenting three facts using population tax records for children born in the 1980s. First, gender gaps in employment rates, earnings, and college attendance vary substantially across the parental income distributio...

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Published inThe American economic review Vol. 106; no. 5; pp. 282 - 288
Main Authors Chetty, Raj, Hendren, Nathaniel, Lin, Frina, Majerovitz, Jeremy, Scuderi, Benjamin
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Nashville American Economic Association 01.05.2016
Subjects
Analysis
Children & youth
Crime
Economic policy
Economic theory
Employment
Families & family life
Family income
Gender differences
GENDER GAPS IN CHILDHOOD: SKILLS, BEHAVIOR, AND LABOR MARKET PREPAREDNESS
Girls
Income distribution
Information returns
Labor market
Low income groups
Parents & parenting
Poverty
Self employment
Social conditions & trends
Studies
Wages & salaries
Women
United States > US
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Summary:We show that differences in childhood environments shape gender gaps in adulthood by documenting three facts using population tax records for children born in the 1980s. First, gender gaps in employment rates, earnings, and college attendance vary substantially across the parental income distribution. Notably, the traditional gender gap in employment rates is reversed for children growing up in poor families: boys in families in the bottom quintile of the income distribution are less likely to work than girls. Second, these gender gaps vary substantially across counties and commuting zones in which children grow up. The degree of variation in outcomes across places is largest for boys growing up in poor, single-parent families. Third, the spatial variation in gender gaps is highly correlated with proxies for neighborhood disadvantage. Low-income boys who grow up in high-poverty, high-minority areas work significantly less than girls. These areas also have higher rates of crime, suggesting that boys growing up in concentrated poverty substitute from formal employment to crime. Together, these findings demonstrate that gender gaps in adulthood have roots in childhood, perhaps because childhood disadvantage is especially harmful for boys.
ISSN:0002-8282
1944-7981
DOI:10.1257/aer.p20161073