IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wrk/warwec/1158.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Maternity leaves in Academia : Why are some UK universities more generous than others?

Author

Listed:
  • Epifanio, Mariaelisa

    (University of Liverpool,Department of Politics)

  • Troeger, Vera E.

    (University of Warwick, Department of Economics)

Abstract

Statutory parental leave provisions in the UK are amongst the least generous as compared to other EU and OECD countries. That is why most companies and other institutions, such as universities, top these legal provisions up with more generous occupational parental leave packages (OMPs). Yet, they don’t do so uniformly. Indeed, the generosity of OMPs offered by HEIs across the UK differ greatly. This paper examines both theoretically and empirically why this is the case. We find that income of HEIs doesn’t make a difference but size in terms of number of employees as well as the student-to-staff ratio do. Our results also show that more research intense universities with a higher previous share of female professors and female academics at child-bearing age provide more generous maternity pay. We offer a range of explanations for these findings.

Suggested Citation

  • Epifanio, Mariaelisa & Troeger, Vera E., 2018. "Maternity leaves in Academia : Why are some UK universities more generous than others?," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 1158, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:wrk:warwec:1158
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/research/workingpapers/2018/twerp_1158_troeger.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Larry D. Singell & John M. McDowell & James P. Ziliak, 1999. "Cracks in the Glass Ceiling: Gender and Promotion in the Economics Profession," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(2), pages 392-396, May.
    2. Maliniak, Daniel & Powers, Ryan & Walter, Barbara F., 2013. "The Gender Citation Gap in International Relations," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 67(4), pages 889-922, October.
    3. Jianakoplos, Nancy Ammon & Bernasek, Alexandra, 1998. "Are Women More Risk Averse?," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 36(4), pages 620-630, October.
    4. Kahn, Shulamit, 1993. "Gender Differences in Academic Career Paths of Economists," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(2), pages 52-56, May.
    5. Rob Euwals & Melanie Ward, 2005. "What matters most: teaching or research? Empirical evidence on the remuneration of British academics," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(14), pages 1655-1672.
    6. Donna K. Ginther & Shulamit Kahn, 2004. "Women in Economics: Moving Up or Falling Off the Academic Career Ladder?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 18(3), pages 193-214, Summer.
    7. Waldfogel, Jane, 1998. "The Family Gap for Young Women in the United States and Britain: Can Maternity Leave Make a Difference?," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 16(3), pages 505-545, July.
    8. Donna K. Ginther & Kathy J. Hayes, 2003. "Gender Differences in Salary and Promotion for Faculty in the Humanities 1977–95," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 38(1).
    9. Solnick, Sara J, 2001. "Gender Differences in the Ultimatum Game," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 39(2), pages 189-200, April.
    10. Nicholas H. Wolfinger & Mary Ann Mason & Marc Goulden, 2008. "Problems in the Pipeline: Gender, Marriage, and Fertility in the Ivory Tower," The Journal of Higher Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 79(4), pages 388-405, July.
    11. McDowell, John M & Smith, Janet Kiholm, 1992. "The Effect of Gender-Sorting on Propensity to Coauthor: Implications for Academic Promotion," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 30(1), pages 68-82, January.
    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. Meredith Nash & Brendan Churchill, 2020. "Caring during COVID‐19: A gendered analysis of Australian university responses to managing remote working and caring responsibilities," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(5), pages 833-846, September.

    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. Epifanio, Mariaelisa & Troeger, Vera E., 2018. "Maternity leaves in Academia: Why are some UK universities more generous than others?," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 365, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    2. Epifanio, Mariaelisa & Troeger, Vera E, 2013. "How much do children really cost? Maternity benefits and career opportunities of women in academia," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 171, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    3. Karen Mumford & Cristina Sechel, 2017. "Pay, Rank and Job Satisfaction amongst Academic Economists in the UK," Discussion Papers 17/17, Department of Economics, University of York.
    4. Joan Daouli & Eirini Konstantina Nikolatou, 2015. "The Market for Ph.D. Holders in Greece: Probit and Multinomial Logit Analysis of their Employment Status," South-Eastern Europe Journal of Economics, Association of Economic Universities of South and Eastern Europe and the Black Sea Region, vol. 13(1), pages 47-74.
    5. Joyce J. Chen & Daniel Crown, 2019. "The Gender Pay Gap in Academia: Evidence from the Ohio State University," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 101(5), pages 1337-1352, October.
    6. Maria De Paola & Michela Ponzo & Vincenzo Scoppa, 2017. "Gender differences in the propensity to apply for promotion: evidence from the Italian Scientific Qualification," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 69(4), pages 986-1009.
    7. Ioana Boiciuc, 2015. "The Effects of Fiscal Policy on Emerging Economies. A TVP- VAR Approach," South-Eastern Europe Journal of Economics, Association of Economic Universities of South and Eastern Europe and the Black Sea Region, vol. 13(1), pages 75-84.
    8. Maria De Paola & Michela Ponzo & Vincenzo Scoppa, 2018. "Are Men Given Priority for Top Jobs? Investigating the Glass Ceiling in Italian Academia," Journal of Human Capital, University of Chicago Press, vol. 12(3), pages 475-503.
    9. Dolado, Juan J. & Felgueroso, Florentino & Almunia, Miguel, 2005. "Do Men and Women-Economists Choose the Same Research Fields? Evidence from Top-50 Departments," IZA Discussion Papers 1859, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Gorodnichenko, Yuriy & Pham, Tho & Talavera, Oleksandr, 2021. "Conference presentations and academic publishing," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 228-254.
    11. David Colander & Jessica Holmes, 2007. "Gender and graduate economics education in the US," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(2), pages 93-116.
    12. Ana Maria Takahashi & Shingo Takahashi & Thomas Maloney, 2015. "Gender salary and promotion gaps in Japanese academia: Results from science and engineering," Working Papers EMS_2015_02, Research Institute, International University of Japan.
    13. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/1seuirq4ak9b9bouu1j29ebui7 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Anne Boring, 2015. "Gender Biases in Student Evaluations of Teachers," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-03470161, HAL.
    15. Karen Mumford & Cristina Sechel, 2020. "Pay and Job Rank among Academic Economists in the UK: Is Gender Relevant?," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 58(1), pages 82-113, March.
    16. George-Levi Gayle & Limor Golan & Robert Miller, "undated". "Are There Glass Ceilings for Female Executives?," GSIA Working Papers 2009-E8, Carnegie Mellon University, Tepper School of Business.
    17. Natalia Zinovyeva & Manuel F. Bagues, 2010. "Does gender matter for academic promotion? Evidence from a randomized natural experiment," Working Papers 2010-15, FEDEA.
    18. Maria De Paola & Vincenzo Scoppa, 2015. "Gender Discrimination and Evaluators’ Gender: Evidence from Italian Academia," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 82(325), pages 162-188, January.
    19. Donna K. Ginther & Shulamit Kahn, 2009. "Does Science Promote Women? Evidence from Academia 1973-2001," NBER Chapters, in: Science and Engineering Careers in the United States: An Analysis of Markets and Employment, pages 163-194, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Hale, Galina & Regev, Tali, 2014. "Gender ratios at top PhD programs in economics," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 55-70.
    21. Krapf, Matthias & Ursprung, Heinrich W. & Zimmermann, Christian, 2017. "Parenthood and productivity of highly skilled labor: Evidence from the groves of academe," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 140(C), pages 147-175.

    More about this item

    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:wrk:warwec:1158. 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: Margaret Nash (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dewaruk.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.