The next RITM Economics Seminar will take place on Monday 15october, in Gaudemet (Jean Monnet – 54 boulevard Desgranges – 92330 Sceaux) from 12:00 to 13:00. Roland Rathelot (U. Warwick) will present “On the Road Again? Gender differentials in reservation utility, wage and commuting distance” (with Thomas Le Barbanchon and Alexandra Roulet).
Abstract:
We document how gender differentials in wages and commuting time widen over the life-cycle. We relate this evidence to stated preferences of newly registered unemployed workers. We use a unique administrative dataset where we can match job seekers’ preferences on several dimensions of the job they are looking for — reservation wage, maximum commute, and working hours — to the precise characteristics of the jobs preceding and following their unemployment spell. We find that, controlling for previous job characteristics (including wages), unemployed women have a lower reservation wage (4%) and declare lower maximum commute than men (11%). This pattern is also more pronounced as age increases. Through the lens of a job search model where commuting matters, a sizeable share of the gender reservation wage gap can be accounted for by gender differences in the maximum accepted commuting time.