Gender inequality by SOFIA MAIER
Journal of Economic Inequality, 2024
In the Spring of 2022, the European Parliament approved new binding pay transparency measures to ... more In the Spring of 2022, the European Parliament approved new binding pay transparency measures to reinforce the European Union’s commitment to its 1957 founding principle of ‘Equal Pay for Equal Work’ between women and men. The distributional consequences of tackling these wage penalties faced by women remain uncertain. In this paper, we estimate
the gender pay gap for employees performing similar work for the 27 EU countries with harmonized microdata and a novel estimation approach. Employing microsimulation techniques, we subsequently evaluate the potential distributional effects of narrowing these gaps on gender inequality in labour earnings, household income inequality, and poverty levels. Our results indicate that these wage penalties among similar workers are the main driver of the gender pay gap in most EU countries, but not in all. This, coupled with factors like household composition and the structure of the tax-benefit system, leads to very different distributional effects across countries
JRC Working Papers on Taxation and Structural Reforms No 11/2022, 2022
The European Parliament has recently approved new binding pay transparency measures to promote ‘E... more The European Parliament has recently approved new binding pay transparency measures to promote ‘Equal Pay for Equal Work’, a European Union (EU) founding principle at the heart of the European Pillar of Social Rights Action Plan for 2030. Using harmonised microdata from the 27 EU countries (EU 27) and a novel estimation approach based on blocking with
regression adjustments, we provide new comparable estimates of the gap in gross hourly wages between women and men performing similar work. This gap ranges from about 6% in Germany to 18% in Estonia. We also shed new light on the (heterogeneous) distributional consequences of a
hypothetical enforcement of equal pay for equal work, simulating an upward shift in women’s gross hourly wage. On the one hand, the strongest impact on the distribution of labour earnings and household disposable income takes place in countries with high gender pay gaps for equal work and small gender gaps in employment and hours worked (mainly in Central Eastern Europe). On the other hand, only marginal effects are simulated in countries with large gaps in hours worked and
gender segregation in the type of work (Central Western European countries) as well as in those countries with large gender gaps in employment rates (Southern European countries). Despite this
cross-country variation, we identify common poverty-reducing and inequality-increasing effects. The latter is driven by the under-representation of employed women in low-income households, which is only partly offset by the tax-benefit systems.
Economic cycle and time-allocation by SOFIA MAIER
Research Papers in Economics, 2020
What is the time-varying impact of economic cycles on decisions to invest in human capital?
The ongoing booms and busts which modern capitalist economies face can inuence individual well-be... more The ongoing booms and busts which modern capitalist economies face can inuence individual well-being and household decision-making in multiple ways. Economic choice models suggest that income and substitution eects involved in the demand for human capital, health and children make the eect of the economic cycle theoretically ambiguous. Therefore, whether counter-or pro-cyclical patterns dominate is an empirical question. Unfortunately, after more than a hundred years of empirical inquiry into these topics, most of the evidence still refers to a limited set of rich western economies. This thesis provides empirical evidence on the eects of the economic cycle on human capital, health and fertility through four empirical essays, covering developed and developing countries, and combining national-, regionaland individual-level data. It also explores the mechanisms driving these patterns, the presence of asymmetries, heterogeneities and scarring eects. Results suggest that households systematically adapt their demand for human capital, health and fertility in response to booms and busts, and that these patterns are heterogeneous across countries as well as by age, gender and socioeconomic background. Human capital formation and health are countercyclical in high and some middle-income countries (paradoxically, they improve in recessions). By contrast, pro-cyclical patterns are observed in the poorest countries, mainly driven by children and women. Fertility rates are in general pro-cyclical, with an inverted But this long run is a misleading guide to current aairs. In the long run we are all dead. Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task, if in tempestuous seasons they can only tell us, that when the storm is long past, the ocean is at again.
Consumption taxes, inflation and inequality by SOFIA MAIER
JRC Working Papers on Taxation and Structural Reforms No 5/2024, 2024
With the hike of global energy prices of 2022-2023 and the fairness challenges of the green trans... more With the hike of global energy prices of 2022-2023 and the fairness challenges of the green transition, energy poverty is again back to the forefront of economic policy debates in Europe. However, the absence of consensus on energy poverty measurement complicates policy
formulation and evaluation in this domain. This paper conducts a comprehensive analysis of the EU-wide distribution and profiles of the ‘energy poor’. We use four well-known measures of energy poverty, two subjective and two based on expenditures, coming from two different household surveys, i.e., HBS and SILC, which we statistically match. With this, we fill an important gap in the literature by measuring the extent of overlap between these indicators. Our results reveal that expenditure-based indicators cover larger shares of the population, especially in middle and high-income EU countries, with very small overlap between energy poverty measures. In the EU, only 0.3% of the population qualifies as ‘energy poor’ when considering all four indicators, while four out of ten (40%) would enter this club by at least one of these indicators. Overall, by providing a characterization of the profiles of those who would be covered or ‘left behind’ by each of these indicators, as well as their relationship with incomes and expenditures, we shed new light on the heterogeneous distributional effects from policy-targeting based on these indicators.
Economic Analysis and Policy, 2024
During the 2010-2019 decade, consumption taxes have risen in the vast majority of the EU Member S... more During the 2010-2019 decade, consumption taxes have risen in the vast majority of the EU Member States as a result of austerity measures, tax shifts as well as taxing transport and housing-related energy consumption. The redistributive impact of these policy changes remains mostly unexplored. In this paper, we provide new empirical evidence on the redistributive effect of changes in VAT and excises over this period, along with other developments in the broader tax-benefit system including tax shift reforms. Our results indicate that the consumption tax systems in the EU have become more unequalizing in most countries as a result of an increase in the tax burden and its regressivity. While the taxation of transport is the component that has increased the most, the highest inequality impact was driven by the taxation of housing-related energy consumption. Only in a few countries these policy changes were accompanied by an increase in social transfers sufficient to compensate the poorest households.
JRC Working Papers on Taxation and Structural Reforms, 2022
The taxation of energy consumption is a central topic in the current policy debate of the Europea... more The taxation of energy consumption is a central topic in the current policy debate of the European Union. While raising energy taxation is part of the European Commission's strategy for achieving its 2030/50 climate targets, the ongoing dramatic increases in the price of energy products are raising calls for reducing their taxation. Therefore, a close consideration of the incidence and redistributive effects of energy taxation is crucial to design compensatory measures and to ensure support for the Green transition. In this paper, we employ the EUROMOD microsimulation model to estimate the burden and the redistributive impact of energy consumption taxation on households across Member States. In doing so, we break down the role played by differences in consumption patterns, rates of taxation and their regressivity. We find that countries where energy taxation is the highest are often not the ones where its incidence on household income is the strongest. At the same time, the highest inequality impact is not always taking place in countries with the most regressive energy taxation. We therefore stress the importance of considering, not only the level of energy consumption taxation, but also its regressivity and its incidence over household income when assessing its inequality cost.
ECB OCCASIONAL PAPER SERIES - No. 330, 2023
This paper analyses the distributional impact of high consumer inflation in the euro
area and g... more This paper analyses the distributional impact of high consumer inflation in the euro
area and government measures to compensate households in 2022. The study uses
the tax-benefit microsimulation model for the European Union (EUROMOD) with
microdata as the input – EU statistics on income and living conditions (EU-SILC) and
household budget surveys (HBS) – to quantify the distributional impact of inflation,
income support measures and measures aimed at containing prices. The analysis
confirms that purchasing power and welfare were more severely affected by the
2022 inflation surge in lower-income households than in higher-income
households. Fiscal measures compensated households for about a third of their
welfare loss, though with significant differences between countries. At the same time,
fiscal measures closed around 60% of the inequality gap between lower and higher income households. Most fiscal measures were not particularly well targeted at low income households, resulting in a higher than necessary fiscal burden to cushion the
distributional impact of the inflationary shock
Papers by SOFIA MAIER
This couldn't have been possible without the support of my wonderful parents Ema and Daniel and m... more This couldn't have been possible without the support of my wonderful parents Ema and Daniel and my beloved boyfriend Matías; I feel the luckiest person in the world to have you all.
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Gender inequality by SOFIA MAIER
the gender pay gap for employees performing similar work for the 27 EU countries with harmonized microdata and a novel estimation approach. Employing microsimulation techniques, we subsequently evaluate the potential distributional effects of narrowing these gaps on gender inequality in labour earnings, household income inequality, and poverty levels. Our results indicate that these wage penalties among similar workers are the main driver of the gender pay gap in most EU countries, but not in all. This, coupled with factors like household composition and the structure of the tax-benefit system, leads to very different distributional effects across countries
regression adjustments, we provide new comparable estimates of the gap in gross hourly wages between women and men performing similar work. This gap ranges from about 6% in Germany to 18% in Estonia. We also shed new light on the (heterogeneous) distributional consequences of a
hypothetical enforcement of equal pay for equal work, simulating an upward shift in women’s gross hourly wage. On the one hand, the strongest impact on the distribution of labour earnings and household disposable income takes place in countries with high gender pay gaps for equal work and small gender gaps in employment and hours worked (mainly in Central Eastern Europe). On the other hand, only marginal effects are simulated in countries with large gaps in hours worked and
gender segregation in the type of work (Central Western European countries) as well as in those countries with large gender gaps in employment rates (Southern European countries). Despite this
cross-country variation, we identify common poverty-reducing and inequality-increasing effects. The latter is driven by the under-representation of employed women in low-income households, which is only partly offset by the tax-benefit systems.
Economic cycle and time-allocation by SOFIA MAIER
Consumption taxes, inflation and inequality by SOFIA MAIER
formulation and evaluation in this domain. This paper conducts a comprehensive analysis of the EU-wide distribution and profiles of the ‘energy poor’. We use four well-known measures of energy poverty, two subjective and two based on expenditures, coming from two different household surveys, i.e., HBS and SILC, which we statistically match. With this, we fill an important gap in the literature by measuring the extent of overlap between these indicators. Our results reveal that expenditure-based indicators cover larger shares of the population, especially in middle and high-income EU countries, with very small overlap between energy poverty measures. In the EU, only 0.3% of the population qualifies as ‘energy poor’ when considering all four indicators, while four out of ten (40%) would enter this club by at least one of these indicators. Overall, by providing a characterization of the profiles of those who would be covered or ‘left behind’ by each of these indicators, as well as their relationship with incomes and expenditures, we shed new light on the heterogeneous distributional effects from policy-targeting based on these indicators.
area and government measures to compensate households in 2022. The study uses
the tax-benefit microsimulation model for the European Union (EUROMOD) with
microdata as the input – EU statistics on income and living conditions (EU-SILC) and
household budget surveys (HBS) – to quantify the distributional impact of inflation,
income support measures and measures aimed at containing prices. The analysis
confirms that purchasing power and welfare were more severely affected by the
2022 inflation surge in lower-income households than in higher-income
households. Fiscal measures compensated households for about a third of their
welfare loss, though with significant differences between countries. At the same time,
fiscal measures closed around 60% of the inequality gap between lower and higher income households. Most fiscal measures were not particularly well targeted at low income households, resulting in a higher than necessary fiscal burden to cushion the
distributional impact of the inflationary shock
Papers by SOFIA MAIER
the gender pay gap for employees performing similar work for the 27 EU countries with harmonized microdata and a novel estimation approach. Employing microsimulation techniques, we subsequently evaluate the potential distributional effects of narrowing these gaps on gender inequality in labour earnings, household income inequality, and poverty levels. Our results indicate that these wage penalties among similar workers are the main driver of the gender pay gap in most EU countries, but not in all. This, coupled with factors like household composition and the structure of the tax-benefit system, leads to very different distributional effects across countries
regression adjustments, we provide new comparable estimates of the gap in gross hourly wages between women and men performing similar work. This gap ranges from about 6% in Germany to 18% in Estonia. We also shed new light on the (heterogeneous) distributional consequences of a
hypothetical enforcement of equal pay for equal work, simulating an upward shift in women’s gross hourly wage. On the one hand, the strongest impact on the distribution of labour earnings and household disposable income takes place in countries with high gender pay gaps for equal work and small gender gaps in employment and hours worked (mainly in Central Eastern Europe). On the other hand, only marginal effects are simulated in countries with large gaps in hours worked and
gender segregation in the type of work (Central Western European countries) as well as in those countries with large gender gaps in employment rates (Southern European countries). Despite this
cross-country variation, we identify common poverty-reducing and inequality-increasing effects. The latter is driven by the under-representation of employed women in low-income households, which is only partly offset by the tax-benefit systems.
formulation and evaluation in this domain. This paper conducts a comprehensive analysis of the EU-wide distribution and profiles of the ‘energy poor’. We use four well-known measures of energy poverty, two subjective and two based on expenditures, coming from two different household surveys, i.e., HBS and SILC, which we statistically match. With this, we fill an important gap in the literature by measuring the extent of overlap between these indicators. Our results reveal that expenditure-based indicators cover larger shares of the population, especially in middle and high-income EU countries, with very small overlap between energy poverty measures. In the EU, only 0.3% of the population qualifies as ‘energy poor’ when considering all four indicators, while four out of ten (40%) would enter this club by at least one of these indicators. Overall, by providing a characterization of the profiles of those who would be covered or ‘left behind’ by each of these indicators, as well as their relationship with incomes and expenditures, we shed new light on the heterogeneous distributional effects from policy-targeting based on these indicators.
area and government measures to compensate households in 2022. The study uses
the tax-benefit microsimulation model for the European Union (EUROMOD) with
microdata as the input – EU statistics on income and living conditions (EU-SILC) and
household budget surveys (HBS) – to quantify the distributional impact of inflation,
income support measures and measures aimed at containing prices. The analysis
confirms that purchasing power and welfare were more severely affected by the
2022 inflation surge in lower-income households than in higher-income
households. Fiscal measures compensated households for about a third of their
welfare loss, though with significant differences between countries. At the same time,
fiscal measures closed around 60% of the inequality gap between lower and higher income households. Most fiscal measures were not particularly well targeted at low income households, resulting in a higher than necessary fiscal burden to cushion the
distributional impact of the inflationary shock