IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ebl/ecbull/eb-20-00223.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Gender, price, and quantity effects in U.S. earnings inequality: revisiting counterfactual density estimates

Author

Listed:
  • Andrew Silva

    (The Gender Center, The Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies)

Abstract

I decompose changes in the U.S. household earnings distribution from 1975 to 2018 to examine the labor market processes underlying its evolution over time. I model the distribution of earnings as a function of price effects (wages) and quantity effects (work hours and household employment), each of which are specified separately for men and women, and then apply a semi-parametric density estimation technique to infer their contributions to distributional measures. Results indicate that changes to the male wage distribution explain much of the growth in earnings inequality, but that its contribution varied greatly over time, with peak contributions in the mid 1990s; changes in female work hours have actually mitigated inequality growth, particularly by raising earnings in the lower and mid portions of the distribution, with more consistent effects over time. These results demonstrate the relevance of work hours in addition to wage rates in explaining earnings inequality growth, and the importance of gender differences therein.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrew Silva, 2020. "Gender, price, and quantity effects in U.S. earnings inequality: revisiting counterfactual density estimates," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 40(3), pages 2505-2520.
    • Handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-20-00223
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.accessecon.com/Pubs/EB/2020/Volume40/EB-20-V40-I3-P219.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Richard Burkhauser & Shuaizhang Feng & Stephen Jenkins & Jeff Larrimore, 2009. "Recent Trends in Top Income Shares in the USA: Reconciling Estimates from March CPS and IRS Tax Return Data," Working Papers 09-26, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    2. DiNardo, John & Fortin, Nicole M & Lemieux, Thomas, 1996. "Labor Market Institutions and the Distribution of Wages, 1973-1992: A Semiparametric Approach," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 64(5), pages 1001-1044, September.
    3. Deborah Reed & Maria Cancian, 2001. "Sources of Inequality: Measuring the Contributions of Income Sources to Rising Family Income Inequality," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 47(3), pages 321-333, September.
    4. Fortin, Nicole & Lemieux, Thomas & Firpo, Sergio, 2011. "Decomposition Methods in Economics," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 1, pages 1-102, Elsevier.
    5. repec:bla:revinw:v:47:y:2001:i:3:p:321-33 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. José Mata & José A. F. Machado, 2005. "Counterfactual decomposition of changes in wage distributions using quantile regression," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 20(4), pages 445-465.
    7. Jonathan Heathcote & Fabrizio Perri & Giovanni L. Violante, 2010. "Unequal We Stand: An Empirical Analysis of Economic Inequality in the United States: 1967-2006," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 13(1), pages 15-51, January.
    8. Anthony F. Shorrocks, 1983. "The Impact of Income Components on the Distribution of Family Incomes," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 98(2), pages 311-326.
    9. Peter Gottschalk & Sheldon Danziger, 2005. "Inequality Of Wage Rates, Earnings And Family Income In The United States, 1975–2002," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 51(2), pages 231-254, June.
    10. Melly, Blaise, 2005. "Decomposition of differences in distribution using quantile regression," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(4), pages 577-590, August.
    11. Mary C. Daly & Robert G. Valletta, 2006. "Inequality and Poverty in United States: The Effects of Rising Dispersion of Men's Earnings and Changing Family Behaviour," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 73(289), pages 75-98, February.
    12. Richard V. Burkhauser & Shuaizhang Feng & Stephen P. Jenkins & Jeff Larrimore, 2012. "Recent Trends in Top Income Shares in the United States: Reconciling Estimates from March CPS and IRS Tax Return Data," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 94(2), pages 371-388, May.
    13. Lynn Karoly & Gary Burtless, 1995. "Demographic change, rising earnings inequality, and the distribution of personal well-being, 1959–1989," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 32(3), pages 379-405, August.
    14. Lerman, Robert I & Yitzhaki, Shlomo, 1985. "Income Inequality Effects by Income," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 67(1), pages 151-156, February.
    15. David H. Autor & Lawrence F. Katz & Melissa S. Kearney, 2005. "Rising Wage Inequality: The Role of Composition and Prices," Harvard Institute of Economic Research Working Papers 2096, Harvard - Institute of Economic Research.
    16. Jeff Larrimore & Richard Burkhauser & Shuaizhang Feng & Laura Zayatz, 2008. "Consistent Cell Means for Topcoded Incomes in the Public Use March CPS (1976-2007)," Working Papers 08-06, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    17. O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), 1999. "Handbook of Labor Economics," Handbook of Labor Economics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 3, number 3.
    18. Albert Chevan & Randall Stokes, 2000. "Growth in family income inequality, 1970–1990: Industrial restructuring and demographic change," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 37(3), pages 365-380, August.
    19. Martin Biewen, 2001. "Measuring the Effects of Socio-Economic Variables on the Income Distribution: An Application to the East German Transition Process," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 83(1), pages 185-190, February.
    20. Burtless, Gary, 1999. "Effects of growing wage disparities and changing family composition on the U.S. income distribution," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 43(4-6), pages 853-865, April.
    21. Maria Cancian & Deborah Reed, 1999. "The impact of wives’ earnings on income inequality: Issues and estimates," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 36(2), pages 173-184, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Salverda, Wiemer & Checchi, Daniele, 2014. "Labour-Market Institutions and the Dispersion of Wage Earnings," IZA Discussion Papers 8220, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Nolan, Brian & Azzollini, Leo & Breen, Richard, 2022. "From Gender Equality to Household Earnings Equality: the role of Women's Labour Market Outcomes across OECD Countries," INET Oxford Working Papers 2022-13, Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford.
    3. Inhoe Ku & Wonjin Lee & Seoyun Lee & Kyounghoon Han, 2018. "The Role of Family Behaviors in Determining Income Distribution: The Case of South Korea," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 55(3), pages 877-899, June.
    4. Richard Burkhauser & Shuaizhang Feng & Stephen Jenkins & Jeff Larrimore, 2011. "Estimating trends in US income inequality using the Current Population Survey: the importance of controlling for censoring," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 9(3), pages 393-415, September.
    5. Mary C. Daly & Robert G. Valletta, 2000. "Inequality and poverty in the United States: the effects of changing family behavior and rising wage dispersion," Working Paper Series 2000-06, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
    6. Bargain, Olivier B. & Dolls, Mathias & Immervoll, Herwig & Neumann, Dirk & Peichl, Andreas & Pestel, Nico & Siegloch, Sebastian, 2011. "Tax Policy and Income Inequality in the U.S., 1978-2009: A Decomposition Approach," IZA Discussion Papers 5910, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. Philip Armour & Richard V. Burkhauser & Jeff Larrimore, 2014. "Levels and Trends in U.S. Income and its Distribution: A Crosswalk from Market Income towards a Comprehensive Haig‐Simons Income Approach," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 81(2), pages 271-293, October.
    8. Lasse Eika & Magne Mogstad & Basit Zafar, 2019. "Educational Assortative Mating and Household Income Inequality," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 127(6), pages 2795-2835.
    9. Wen Hao Chen & Michael Förster & Ana Llena-Nozal, 2013. "Determinants of Household Earnings Inequality: The Role of Labour Market Trends and Changing Household Structure," LIS Working papers 591, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    10. Carlo Vittorio FIORIO, 2008. "Understanding Italian inequality trends: a simulation-based decomposition," Departmental Working Papers 2008-26, Department of Economics, Management and Quantitative Methods at Università degli Studi di Milano.
    11. Jeff Larrimore & Richard V. Burkhauser & Philip Armour, 2013. "Accounting for Income Changes over the Great Recession (2007-2010) Relative to Previous Recessions: The Importance of Taxes and Transfers," NBER Working Papers 19699, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Sarah Voitchovsky & Bertrand Maitre & Brian Nolan, 2012. "Wage Inequality in Ireland’s “Celtic Tiger” Boom," The Economic and Social Review, Economic and Social Studies, vol. 43(1), pages 99-133.
    13. Nico Pestel, 2017. "Marital Sorting, Inequality and the Role of Female Labour Supply: Evidence from East and West Germany," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 84(333), pages 104-127, January.
    14. Azam, Mehtabul, 2012. "Changes in Wage Structure in Urban India, 1983–2004: A Quantile Regression Decomposition," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(6), pages 1135-1150.
    15. Philip Armour & Richard V. Burkhauser & Jeff Larrimore, 2013. "Levels and Trends in United States Income and Its Distribution A Crosswalk from Market Income Towards a Comprehensive Haig-Simons Income Approach," NBER Working Papers 19110, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. David H. Autor & Lawrence F. Katz & Melissa S. Kearney, 2005. "Trends in U. S. Wage Inequality: Re-Assessing the Revisionists," Harvard Institute of Economic Research Working Papers 2095, Harvard - Institute of Economic Research.
    17. Leo Azzollini & Richard Breen & Brian Nolan, 2023. "Demographic behaviour and earnings inequality across OECD countries," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 21(2), pages 441-461, June.
    18. Mulholland, Sean, 2018. "Income Inequality in the United States," Working Papers 04022, George Mason University, Mercatus Center.
    19. Jeff Larrimore, 2014. "Accounting for United States Household Income Inequality Trends: The Changing Importance of Household Structure and Male and Female Labor Earnings Inequality," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 60(4), pages 683-701, December.
    20. Fortin, Nicole & Lemieux, Thomas & Firpo, Sergio, 2011. "Decomposition Methods in Economics," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 1, pages 1-102, Elsevier.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    counterfactual distribution; employment; gender; hours; income; inequality; wages;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D3 - Microeconomics - - Distribution
    • J3 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-20-00223. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: John P. Conley (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.