Location: Cambridge, MA

Description: Gender in the Economy

Paper submission deadline: March 18, 2020

To promote research on the role of gender in both developing and developed economies, the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), with the support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, has formed a Study Group on Gender in the Economy.  This initiative will bring together researchers who study economic aspects of gender in a variety of economic sub-fields, and in a range of different institutional settings, to share and discuss current research findings and to identify promising directions for future research.  The Study Group will be directed by Claudia Goldin (Harvard University and NBER), Seema Jayachandran (Northwestern University and NBER), and Claudia Olivetti (Dartmouth College and NBER). 
 
The Study Group will convene a one and a half day research meeting in Cambridge, Massachusetts, from Friday, July 24 through mid-day on Saturday, July 25, as part of the NBER Summer Institute. The meeting will feature ten to twelve research presentations. The organizers welcome submissions of research papers that address the impact of gender on economic outcomes in both developing and developed economies, at both the microeconomic and macroeconomic level, develop frameworks for understanding why gender matters, and analyze the economic impact of gender-linked policies. The meeting will focus on four broad topics:

* Victimization, Vulnerability, and Violence against Women. One of the basic differences between men and women is men's often monopoly on violence. Topics include domestic violence; how women's geographic mobility is hindered and its economic consequences; patriarchy historically considered; greater financial security as a means to reduce victimization and violence; bargaining in households; harassment and violence in the workplace.

* Household Finance. Household finance is an expansive subject area in developing and developed nations. The topics include the role of mobile money; bargaining in households; financial literacy of women; access to bank accounts and credit; women's empowerment as flowing from financial security; the impact of women's property rights for financial investment decisions; control over money in household bargaining and marital dissolution.

* Women's Wellbeing and Children's Health. Women now live a lot longer than do men in most parts of the world. They didn't always, and in some parts of the world today, they still do not. Topics here include maternal mortality, contraception, abortion (particularly sex selective), and AIDS. Access to family planning services cuts across all nations and time periods. Changes in health risks due to women's increased economic roles and riskier behaviors are also important.

* Women and Education across the World. An irony in the study of gender differences is the remarkable increase in women's levels of higher education at the same time that gender differences in earnings and employment remain substantial. Still, many of the world's women struggle to obtain minimal levels of education. This expansive subject area includes returns to education, reasons for barriers to girl's education in some nations, how gender gaps in the labor market are responding to relative skill levels, and college majors of women and men.

 
We will only accept papers, not abstracts. Submitted papers can be less-than-polished drafts. Papers by researchers with and without NBER affiliations, by early career scholars, and by researchers from under-represented groups, are welcome. Papers that will be published by July 2020 will not be considered. Authors will be notified about whether their papers have been selected by late April, 2020.