• Corpus ID: 203615636

A Study of the Long-Run Substitutability Between Men and Women

@inproceedings{Ghosh2018ASO,
  title={A Study of the Long-Run Substitutability Between Men and Women},
  author={Pallab K. Ghosh},
  year={2018}
}

• Pallab K. Ghosh
• Published 2018
• Economics

Using a variable elasticity of substitution (VES) framework, this study estimates the long-run elasticity of substitution between US male and female workers, specifically, the slope of the inverse demand curve for male workers relative to female workers. Our 2SLS approach exploits possible exogenous sources of change in state employment induced by national employment growth. We find that the long-run elasticity of substitution between male and female workers is close to 1.7 and show that this estimate is robust across a wide range of model specifications. Using this estimated elasticity of substitution parameter, we find that approximately 7% of the fall in the gender wage gap can be explained by a steep increase in the relative female labor supply during the period 1980-2014.