Research project In it together? Supporting women's employment to reduce economic inequality among all households

So far, prominent explanations of economic inequality have neglected the potential impact of women´s rising earnings on inequality among households, even though it is one of the most profound developments in economic activity in recent decades.

This project theorizes and analyzes how trends in women´s employment and earnings affected vertical inequality: the extent to which household incomes differ. For economic inequality it matters a great deal whether the rise of women´s employment and earnings was predominantly among singles and single mothers, among women living in couples, or among households with additional earners that already were close to the top (or bottom) of the earnings distribution. In this project, I also study how institutional contexts shape employment and earnings of women across diverse households.

This proposed theory will be rigorously tested using state-of-the-art quantile regression techniques and longitudinal data from EU-SILC and LIS, combined with high quality indicators of institutional context. Empirical studies address four areas of particular interest: (A1.) family diversity including single parents, (A2.) causal inferences, and the impact of the institutional context that is characterized both by (B1.) family policy and (B2.) social security.