EC316 Economics and Gender – Fall 2014 Syllabus Class: Monday and Wednesday 1-­‐2:20pm P1019 A. General Course Information Professor: Tammy Schirle Office: P3056 Telephone: (519) 884-­‐0710 x.3849 Email: tschirle@wlu.ca Twitter: @tammyschirle Office Hours: Monday 11:45-­‐12:45, Tuesday 1-­‐2pm or by appointment Website: http://www.tammyschirle.org/teaching.html Course Content: In this course we study various issues of interest to economists, particularly where gender differentials exist in economic outcomes and/or behaviours. We take a life cycle perspective in organizing the course. We begin by looking at society’s general preference for sons. We examine gender differentials in human capital investments in children and youth. A large part of the course examines gender differentials in adulthood, primarily in labour market outcomes such as wages and employment. Finally, we consider gender differentials in well-­‐being among the elderly. The course is primarily research-­‐based. Email: Include EC316 in the subject line to facilitate my mailbox organization. Do not use alternative email addresses (Hotmail, etc.) because these often get filtered to junkmail. I regularly check email during normal business hours Monday-­‐Friday; you should not expect a response otherwise. I do not use MyLS messaging and do not check that mailbox. Before contacting any professor, please make sure you’ve read the syllabus. Twitter: Do not contact me via twitter, I will not respond. I will not follow you, but remember your profs see what you tweet. I tend to send short messages via twitter in advance of MyLS, including class cancellations. Course requirements and weighting – summary Test 1 October 8 25% (see C.1. below) Interim Report October 29 10% Test 2 November 19 30% (see C.1. below) Group presentation November 24-­‐Dec. 3 10% Term Paper December 5 25% Note there is no exam during the final exam period in December. 1 Required Textbook and Topics There is no required textbook for this course. A recommended text is Francine Blau, Marianne Ferber and Anne Winkler. 2014 The Economics of Women, Men, and Work, 7th Edition. Pearson. Some chapters from Blau et al. 2014 are required reading and is available with Library reserves. Most required reading will be available online. We will use My Learning Space to post lecture slides and other materials, submit coursework, and track grades. Please check for announcements and your grades regularly. Planned Topics and Required Reading Note that some of the journal articles listed below are relatively heavy reading – typically written by people with PhDs for people with PhDs. Read the introduction, review descriptive statistics, get a sense of what is being estimated (what is Y and X in the regression?) and get the main conclusions. We will review key points in class. You do not need to understand all the econometric details. It is wise to read ahead so that clarifying questions can be asked in class. 1. At and before birth – Are women starting off life at a disadvantage? 1. Klasen, Stephan and Claudia Wink. 2002. "A turning point in gender bias in mortality? An update on the number of missing women." Population and Development Review. Vol. 28(2) pp. 285-­‐312. Download from http://www.jstor.org/stable/3092814 1. Douglas Almond, Lena Edlund, Kevin Milligan. 2013. “Son Preference and the Persistence of Culture: Evidence from South and East Asian Immigrants to Canada” Population and Development Review. Volume 39, issue 1, pages 75-­‐95. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1728-­‐4457.2013.00574.x/abstract 2. Gordon B. Dahl and Enrico Moretti. 2008. “The Demand for Sons” The Review of Economic Studies. Volume 75(4), 1085-­‐1120. http://restud.oxfordjournals.org/content/75/4/1085.short 2. Childhood & Youth – Education and future plans for labour and fertility may be made simultaneously. This section focuses on skills developed before entering the labour market. Why is it that today’s women are more likely to enroll in university than men? 1. Michael Baker and Kevin Milligan. 2013. “Boy-­‐Girl Differences in Parental Time Investments: Evidence from Three Countries” NBER Working Paper no. 18893, March 2013. http://www.nber.org/papers/w18893 2 2. Nicole M. Fortin, Philip Oreopoulos, Shelley Phipps. 2013. “Leaving Boys Behind: Gender Disparities in High Academic Achievement”. NBER Working paper No. 19331. August 2013. 3. Textbook reading – Francine Blau, Marianne Ferber and Anne Winkler. 2014. Chapter 8: Gender Differences in Educational Attainment: Theory and Evidence. In The Economics of Women, Men, and Work, 7th Edition. 3. Adulthood & Working Life – Many decisions are made simultaneously, including marriage, fertility, and labour supply. Many factors influence these decisions -­‐ the persistence of occupational segregation, gender wage gaps, pay equity and affirmative action policies, family friendly workplace practices and benefits, and social pressure are accounted for. 1. Milan, Anne. 2013. “Fertility Overview 2009-­‐2011.” Statistics Canada Cat. No. 91-­‐
209-­‐X. Report on the Demographic Situation in Canada. http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/91-­‐209-­‐x/2013001/article/11784-­‐eng.htm#a4 2. Textbook chapters – Francine Blau, Marianne Ferber and Anne Winkler. 2014. Chapter 6: The Labor Supply Decision. In The Economics of Women, Men, and Work, 7th Edition.. 3. Michael Baker and Marie Drolet. 2010. “A New View of the Male/Female Pay Gap” Canadian Public Policy. Volume 36, No. 4. December 2010. http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/canadian_public_policy/v036/36.4.baker.html 4. Blau, Francine D., and Lawrence M. Kahn. 2013. "Female Labor Supply: Why Is the United States Falling Behind?" American Economic Review, 103(3): 251-­‐56. http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/aer.103.3.251 4. Elderly persons – Well-­‐being in retirement depends heavily on family circumstance and lifetime work experience. Women face higher risks of losing a spouse and more severe longevity risk. Public pensions do not treat all seniors equitably. 1. Tammy Schirle. 2008. "Why Have the Labour Force Participation Rates of Older Men Increased Since the Mid-­‐1990s?" Journal of Labor Economics. Vol. 26 no.4 (October 2008) pp. 549-­‐594. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/589457 2. Shelly Lundberg, Richard Startz, Steven Stillman. 2003. . “The retirement-­‐
consumption puzzle: a marital bargaining approach” Journal of Public Economics Volume 87, Issues 5–6, May 2003, Pages 1199–1218 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047272701001694 3. Andre Bernard and Chris Li. 2006. “Death of a Spouse: The impact on income for senior men and women.” Statistics Canada Cat. No. 11-­‐621-­‐MIE – No. 046. Income statistics Division. http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/11-­‐621-­‐m/11-­‐621-­‐m2006046-­‐eng.pdf 3 B. University information Wilfrid Laurier University uses software that can check for plagiarism. Students may be required to submit their written work in electronic form and have it checked for plagiarism. You are reminded that the University will levy sanctions on students who are found to have committed, or have attempted to commit, acts of academic or research misconduct. You are expected to know what constitutes an academic offense, to avoid committing such offenses, and to take responsibility for your academic actions. For information on categories of offenses and types of penalty, please consult the relevant section of the Undergraduate Academic Calendar. If you need clarification of aspects of University policy on Academic and Research Misconduct, please consult your instructor. Accessible Learning: Students with disabilities or special needs are advised to contact Laurier’s Accessible
Learning Centre for information regarding its services and resources. Students are
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4 C. Evaluation Details C.1. Term tests If you write both tests, the test grades will be reweighed to place 40% of your final grade on the higher grade and 15% on the lower grade. I do not require documentation for missed tests. • If you miss any test, reweighting does not apply • If you miss the first test, the weight of the test will be shifted to the second test • If you miss the second test, the weight of the test will be shifted to all other evaluation materials from the term (first test if completed, interim report, term paper, and group presentation) • If you miss the first and second test, the weight of both tests will be shifted to all other evaluation materials from the term (interim report, term paper, and group presentation) C.2. Group Presentations You are going to present a summary of a journal article to the class. You can choose an article from a list placed on MyLS. You should plan on 15-­‐20 minutes for your presentation. Your group should have four individuals. Exceptions will only be made once all groups are formed. Groups must be formed by October 6 (time will be set aside in class to ensure groups are organized). You must notify the professor by October 22 of your chosen paper. Each paper can only be presented once, so sign up as early as possible. Time slots for presentations will be allocated by lottery. You are expected to attend all presentations. A copy of the slides used in the presentation must be handed in via the appropriate MyLS dropbox on the day of your presentation. Please bring a printed copy on the day of your presentation. C.3. Interim Report and Term Paper Suggestions for writing your outline and paper will be posted in MyLS. You can write the paper and interim report alone, or in pairs. While I encourage peer-­‐editing efforts, you may not collaborate beyond this in terms of researching your topic and writing the paper. The objective is to ask and answer a very specific research question that would be asked by an economist interested in Economics and Gender. You would attempt to answer that question using economic theory, and by presenting evidence found in the existing economics literature. You might add to the literature by investigating the data yourself. This could be as simple as compiling some existing statistics from Statistics Canada’s 5 CANSIM series, or using microdata files from the library to do tabulations or run a regression. If the literature is quite thorough, an investigation of the data is not necessary. You must provide a clear conclusion that would represent an answer. You may include in your paper a discussion of the evidence that is missing from the literature to provide a full and complete answer to your question. Many students will find topics in this course that inspire EC481 research papers. You can think of this term paper as a starting point to be built on for future research. If you take this approach, be sure to understand academic integrity rules – notably you cannot hand in the exact same paper for two classes. You can, however, take the research questions that arise while doing this paper and turn them into an EC481 paper. The advantage is being familiar with the literature before you start EC481. Key to a good paper is developing a very specific question. Big picture questions are typically impossible to answer in a short term paper. If you are trying to settle on a question, feel free to visit during office hours. The interim reports are due October 29, 1pm and must be handed in using the appropriate MyLearningSpace dropbox. A PDF is preferred, but Microsoft Word documents are acceptable. The outline is worth 10 marks. Late submissions are penalized by 2 of 10 marks per day. (ie. if you are 1 minute late you will lose 2 of 10 marks, 24 hours and 1 minute late will lose 4 of 10 marks). Early assignments are rewarded if handed in before 5:00 pm the previous day. For each 24 hour period before 5pm you will receive a 0.5 mark bonus with a maximum bonus of 1.5 marks. The interim report is not a formal document and can be written in point form (bullets). However, it must be well organized. It should represent a draft of your term paper and outline the information you plan to present therein. You should clearly state your research question. The outline should include section heading, subsections if applicable, and each point would represent a paragraph or two. The points describe what you have learned and will write about. You should include proper citations and references. You may also include a list of questions and issues you need to address to complete your term paper. Please use credible sources. While popular media sites can be useful for motivating a research question, they are rarely useful for informing your research. The term paper is due 5 pm on Friday December 5. The report is worth 25 marks. Late reports are penalized by 5 of 25 marks per day. (ie. if you are one minute late you will lose 5 of 25 marks, 24 hours and 1 minute late will lost 10 of 25 marks). The term paper must be handed in via the appropriate MyLS dropbox. A PDF is preferred, but Microsoft Word documents are acceptable. 6