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Are Business Cycles Gender Neutral?

Author

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  • Giovanni Razzu

    (Department of Economics, University of Reading)

  • Carl Singleton

Abstract

We study the relationship between business cycles and gender employment rate gaps in the UK over the last four decades, on which there is surprisingly limited evidence. An analysis of employment rates as opposed to unemployment accounts for the greater tendency of women to move in and out of economic activity between spells of work. We estimate the relationship using a multivariate GARCH model and show results by using both the Christiano Fitzgerald Bass Pand filter and the Hodrick Prescott filter to extract the cyclical components of GDP. We find that business cycles are not gender neutral, their impact being greater on male than on female employment rates. A one percentage point increase in the deviation from trend GDP determines an increase in the gender employment rate gap of 0.2-0.25 percentage points.

Suggested Citation

  • Giovanni Razzu & Carl Singleton, 2013. "Are Business Cycles Gender Neutral?," Economics Discussion Papers em-dp2013-07, Department of Economics, University of Reading.
    • Handle: RePEc:rdg:emxxdp:em-dp2013-07
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    File URL: http://www.reading.ac.uk/web/FILES/economics/emdp2013104.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    business cycles; gender; employment; multivariate GARCH models;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • C32 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Time-Series Models; Dynamic Quantile Regressions; Dynamic Treatment Effect Models; Diffusion Processes; State Space Models

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