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Posts Tagged ‘gender relations’

Do We Drink Because We're Monogamous, or Are We Monogamous Because We Drink?

Our latest Freakonomics Radio podcast is called “Do More Expensive Wines Taste Better?” It features some research presented by the American Association of Wine Economists, whose members include Karl Storchmann, managing editor of the group’s Journal of Wine Economics.
Storchmann wrote to us the other day about an interesting working paper the AAWE has just posted: “Women or Wine? Monogamy and Alcohol,” by Mara Squicciarini and Jo Swinnen.


A Very Interesting Paragraph From …

… Economic Lives: How Culture Shapes the Economy, by Viviana A. Zelizer, an economic sociologist at Princeton: Suppose for a moment that this is the year 2096. Let’s take a look at American families: although by now money often takes postelectronic forms unfamiliar to the twentieth century, in the “traditional” home, “housewives” and “househusbands” receive monthly stipulated sums of money as salaries from their wage-earning spouses.


Labor Market Arbitrage

The Economist explains how discrimination in the labor market can be reduced by competition in product markets. As in the U.S., Korean women obtain at least the same education as men; but their rates of labor-force participation are much further below those of men than is true in the U.S., and that’s even true for highly educated women. This provides room for companies to hire equally or more qualified women at the same or even lower wages than men.


Personnel Economics: Paying the Babysitter

Very applied personnel economics. During an upcoming stay in Florida with the extended family, all six adults want to go out to a fancy dinner, leaving the six kids alone (since their parents say the older ones – boy, 14; boy, 13; girl, 12; girl, 11 – can care for the little boys, ages 7 and 4). The older ones have had a lot of successful babysitting experience, and their parents say they typically get paid. But what payment mechanism is both efficient (will induce careful babysitting) and equitable?


What Do Pamela Anderson, Britney Spears and Christine O'Donnell Have in Common?

A few weeks back, I revealed myself to be the humorless, politically-correct parent that I am, complaining about the gender roles represented by Lego’s new line of Minifigures. My complaint: Of the sixteen Minifigures, the only two that were women were a Cheerleader and a Nurse. Ever the earnest parent, I hope my daughter can imagine herself creating a life beyond these stereotypical roles.


For a First Date, Wear Red

A new study, summarized in the BPS Research Digest, finds that when it comes to the color red, humans aren’t that different from chimps: they both love red.


Congratulations Fran Blau!

Fran Blau is one of my favorite labor economists in the world: She’s smart, savvy, tackles important problems, and also incredibly generous in helping younger scholars and colleagues with their own research. She is now also the winner of this year’s IZA Prize in Labor Economics.


Women Who Make More

The first chapter of SuperFreakonomics, and a recent Q&A, addressed the pervasive male-female wage gap, but there does seem to be one subset of women who make more money than their male peers.


When a Changing Labor Market Changes Business

There are innumerable great examples of goods in related markets. And of complements and substitutes. (One of my favorites is the local store that sold rock music and condoms, clearly complements.) It’s harder to cook up neat examples of goods markets that are impinged upon by labor-market changes.


More Chores Might Mean More Sex

A new study from sociologists Constance Gager and Scott Yabiku shows that household labor and sexual frequency are not inversely related — a welcome contradiction to the common “more work = less sex” equation. Using data from the National Survey of Families and Households, the authors show that certain types of couples have superior time-organization skills across all their major time commitments: the workplace, at home and in bed.


Quotes Uncovered: If Wolves and Sheep Could Vote

Each week, I’ve been inviting readers to submit quotations whose origins they want me to try to trace, using my book, The Yale Book of Quotations, and my more recent research. Here is the latest round.


Why Car Thieves Are Male

Car theft is a man’s world, according to a new paper by Christopher W. Mullins and Michael G. Cherbonneau. Car thieves face two big tasks: stealing the car and selling it. Both male and female thieves are “mentored” by more experienced thieves in much the same way; however, men have an advantage when it’s time to sell the stolen goods.


Our Daily Bleg: Naked Dreams in Other Cultures?

My friend was just telling me about a recent dream in which she was naked at a party and it reminded me of my similar dreams of being naked at school. It’s such a common trope in American culture that it made me wonder if people in other cultures have it too. Do more open/less prudish cultures like maybe Brazil have it as a common dream? What about much more conservative cultures, like in the Middle East — do they have a much more reserved version of it?


Building Gender Stereotypes

There’s a particular kind of story one reads occasionally, making fun of the worst excesses of political correctness. But this entry is about the other extreme-a toy manufacturer so far in the dark ages that even Don Draper might snicker.


Too Many Constraints

One of my German colleagues has access to $30,000 for Gleichstellung-a German version of an EU-wide initiative to achieve equality between healthy white males and various “disadvantaged” groups, including women. Cleverly, the German government does not want people to substitute these moneys for other funds; as with any subsidy, there is a concern that people will spend it on activities they would have undertaken anyway.


Why Do Women Leave?

A new working paper by Jennifer Hunt examines the exodus of women from the science and engineering fields, and upends some popularly accepted wisdom.


Gender and Fender Benders

We’re coming to the end of a series on whether the man or the woman is more likely to take the wheel when a couple is in the car. Eric Morris argues that whether the man or woman is more likely to drive is literally a question of life and death.


Couples and Cars

Why do men do most of the driving? Recently I’ve posted articles showing that when men and women ride together the man is much more likely to be behind the wheel (see this link and this link). What do you, the readers, think about this?


In Relationships, Are Men in the Driver's Seat?

In the past, I’ve written on matters of high import for the future of our republic, and on literal questions of life and death. But clearly, nothing excites the Freakonomics readership more than the issue of why men tend to do the driving when a couple is in the car. The Times’s server nearly melted down as more than 400 of you posted responses to my article on the subject.


I Pay Them to Leave

A business exec told me that he thinks of consulting firms a bit like Charlie Sheen thinks about prostitutes. When I asked him to explain, he said that when Sheen was being sentenced for using a prostitute, the judge asked him why a man like him would have to pay for sex. And Sheen reportedly replied: “I don’t pay them . . .


A Menstrual Site for Men

That’s how PMSBuddy.com pitches itself. To wit: PMSBuddy.com is a free service created with a single goal in mind: to keep you aware of when your wife, girlfriend, mother, sister, daughter, or any other women in your life are closing in on “that time of the month” – when things can get intense for what may seem to be no . . .


Larry Summers for Treasury Secretary

Larry Summers There is a lot of speculation about whether President-elect Barack Obama will choose Larry Summers to be his Treasury Secretary. But some people are openly opposing Summers’s appointment, in part because of controversial comments he made about women in science. It’s a close question, but I’m hoping that Obama appoints Summers. I have three reasons: First, Summers is . . .