IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp12301.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Long-Term Consequences of the Irish Marriage Bar

Author

Listed:
  • Mosca, Irene

    (National University of Ireland, Maynooth)

  • Wright, Robert E.

    (University of Glasgow)

Abstract

A Marriage Bar is the requirement that women in certain jobs must leave that job when they marry. Ireland had a Marriage Bar in place until the 1970s. In 2014/2015, women participating in the The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing were asked - for the first time in a nationally-representative survey - specific questions about their experience of the Marriage Bar. In this paper, we use the information from the TILDA respondents for two purposes. The first is to investigate the extent of the Marriage Bar in Ireland. Our analysis suggests that the Marriage Bar was widespread and not confined to specific sectors or occupations (such as the Civil Service). The second purpose is to investigate the long-term consequences of the Marriage Bar. We do so by comparing the outcomes of women who were affected by the Marriage Bar with the outcomes of women who were not affected by the Marriage Bar. Regression analysis shows that women affected by the Marriage Bar have shorter working lives, lower individual income but higher wealth at present, more children and more educated children. However, there are no statistically significant differences in the current health status of the two groups of women. The differences in long-term outcomes do not appear to be confounded by the endogeneity of marriage, education, employment and occupational choices.

Suggested Citation

  • Mosca, Irene & Wright, Robert E., 2019. "The Long-Term Consequences of the Irish Marriage Bar," IZA Discussion Papers 12301, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp12301
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp12301.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Edward C. Norton & Hua Wang & Chunrong Ai, 2004. "Computing interaction effects and standard errors in logit and probit models," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 4(2), pages 154-167, June.
    2. Raquel Fernández & Nezih Guner & John Knowles, 2005. "Love and Money: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis of Household Sorting and Inequality," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 120(1), pages 273-344.
    3. Lechner, Michael, 2011. "The Estimation of Causal Effects by Difference-in-Difference Methods," Foundations and Trends(R) in Econometrics, now publishers, vol. 4(3), pages 165-224, November.
    4. Puhani, Patrick A., 2012. "The treatment effect, the cross difference, and the interaction term in nonlinear “difference-in-differences” models," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 115(1), pages 85-87.
    5. Goldin, Claudia, 1992. "Understanding the Gender Gap: An Economic History of American Women," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195072709.
    6. Brendan M. Walsh, 1971. "Aspects of labour supply and demand, with special reference to the employment of women in Ireland," Open Access publications 10197/1483, School of Economics, University College Dublin.
    7. Barro, Robert J. & Lee, Jong Wha, 2013. "A new data set of educational attainment in the world, 1950–2010," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 184-198.
    8. Ai, Chunrong & Norton, Edward C., 2003. "Interaction terms in logit and probit models," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 80(1), pages 123-129, July.
    9. Helen Russell & Frances McGinnity & Philip J. O’Connell, 2017. "Gender Equality in the Irish Labour Market 1966-2016: Unfinished Business?," The Economic and Social Review, Economic and Social Studies, vol. 48(4), pages 393-418.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kakoulidou, Theano & Keane, Claire & Sándorová, Simona, 2024. "State Contributory Pension reform: Winners and losers. Evidence from the Irish Longitudinal Study of Ageing," Papers BP2025/2, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    2. Michelle Barrett & Karina Doorley & Paul Redmond & Barra Roantree, 2022. "How Has the Gender Earnings Gap in Ireland Changed in Thirty Years?," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 11(8), pages 1-21, August.

    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. Barkowski, Scott, 2021. "Interpretation of nonlinear difference-in-differences: the role of the parallel trends assumption," MPRA Paper 108975, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Mario Bossler, 2017. "Employment expectations and uncertainties ahead of the new German minimum wage," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 64(4), pages 327-348, September.
    3. Coupe, Tom & Obrizan, Maksym, 2016. "The impact of war on happiness: The case of Ukraine," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 132(PA), pages 228-242.
    4. Vargas Da Cruz,Marcio Jose, 2014. "Do export promotion agencies promote new exporters ?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 7004, The World Bank.
    5. Bastian Ravesteijn & Hans van Kippersluis & Mauricio Avendano & Pekka Martikainen & Hannu Vessari & Eddy van Doorslaer, 2017. "The Impact of Later Tracking on Mortality by Parental Income in Finland," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 17-030/V, Tinbergen Institute.
    6. Uribe, Ana Maria Tribin & Vargas, Carmiña O. & Bustamante, Natalia Ramírez, 2019. "Unintended consequences of maternity leave legislation: The case of Colombia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 218-232.
    7. Claudia Pigini & Stefano Staffolani, 2022. "Firing Costs and Job Loss: The Case of the Italian Jobs Act," Italian Economic Journal: A Continuation of Rivista Italiana degli Economisti and Giornale degli Economisti, Springer;Società Italiana degli Economisti (Italian Economic Association), vol. 8(1), pages 105-143, March.
    8. Costa-Font, Joan & Vilaplana-Prieto, Cristina, 2022. "Mental health effects of caregivers respite: Subsidies or Supports?," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 23(C).
    9. José M. Arranz & Carlos García†Serrano & Virginia Hernanz, 2018. "Short†Time Work and Employment Stability: Evidence from a Policy Change," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 56(1), pages 189-222, March.
    10. Alberini, Anna & Bareit, Markus & Filippini, Massimo & Martinez-Cruz, Adan L., 2018. "The impact of emissions-based taxes on the retirement of used and inefficient vehicles: The case of Switzerland," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 234-258.
    11. Hanchao Cheng & Yuou Zhang & Jing Sun & Yuanli Liu, 2022. "How Did Zero-Markup Medicines Policy Change Prescriptions in the Eyes of Patients?—A Retrospective Quasi-Experimental Analysis," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(19), pages 1-11, September.
    12. Rodger Barros Antunes Campos & Gustavo Pereira Serra, 2020. "The decision on unconstitutionality of earmarking and its impact on the housing access: Evidence from São Paulo State, Brazil," Regional Science Policy & Practice, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 12(1), pages 25-42, February.
    13. Balogh, Attila & Creedy, Usha & Wright, Danika, 2022. "Time to acquire: Regulatory burden and M&A activity," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    14. Zvonimir Bašić & Parampreet C. Bindra & Daniela Glätzle-Rützler & Angelo Romano & Matthias Sutter & Claudia Zoller, 2021. "The Roots of Cooperation," ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series 097, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.
    15. Sakaue, Katsuki, 2018. "Informal fee charge and school choice under a free primary education policy: Panel data evidence from rural Uganda," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 112-127.
    16. Carolin Bock & Maximilian Schmidt, 2015. "Should I stay, or should I go? – How fund dynamics influence venture capital exit decisions," Review of Financial Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 27(1), pages 68-82, November.
    17. Chenxi Zhou & Jinhong Xie & Qi Wang, 2016. "Failure to Complete Cross-Border M&As: “To” vs. “From” Emerging Markets," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 47(9), pages 1077-1105, December.
    18. Vaidya, Shalvaree, 2021. "The impact of premium subsidies on health plan choices in Switzerland: Who responds to the incentives set by in-kind as opposed to cash transfers?," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 125(6), pages 675-684.
    19. Janus, Thorsten & Riera-Crichton, Daniel, 2015. "Economic shocks, civil war and ethnicity," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 32-44.
    20. Jeremy Greenwood & Nezih Guner & Guillaume Vandenbroucke, 2017. "Family Economics Writ Large," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 55(4), pages 1346-1434, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    discrimination; Ireland; Marriage Bar;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J71 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination - - - Hiring and Firing
    • J78 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination - - - Public Policy (including comparable worth)
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:iza:izadps:dp12301. 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: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    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.