Gender & Productivity in the European Labour Markets

Economic research on gender has predominantly been focussed around discrimination and selection. The inherent productivity effects that are theoretically possible with these phenomena are hard to test due to the restricted availability of the precise contributions of males and females to the production process. By correlating the changes in productivity with changes in the male fraction of the workforce we hope to provide an alternative way of testing for suboptimal allocation of labour. We find some significant results for a number of sectors and countries. Although we are not able to precisely determine the specific causes of these productivity effects, we hope it provides an incentive for more focussed research of the sectors and countries in question. Additionally, the method used by us can be implemented to filter out specific areas where it is most likely to find discrimination or selection effects.