abstract: 'Men and women have become increasingly similar in their education,

  employment and earnings over recent decades. It has been argued that

  these changes have implications for economic inequality, not least

  because couples tend to be formed by persons with similar traits. Given

  the family''s role in pooling and redistributing resources, increased

  equality within households may lead to the accumulation of either

  favorable or unfavorable situations. This has been expected to increase

  inequality between households. We investigate the extent to which the

  increased similarity in partners'' employment participation and earnings

  can account for changes in income inequality.

  We use LIS data for Denmark, Germany, Italy, the UK and the US from the

  mid-19805 to the mid-2000s and employ decomposition techniques of the

  Theil index. We enrich the existing literature by providing

  internationally comparative evidence for a long time period up to more

  recent dates, and propose an innovative method to account for effects of

  employment and earnings similarity independently from changes in the

  overall earnings distribution.

  In contrast to the expectations, we show that an increased similarity

  among partners does not augment inequality to a relevant degree, and

  that the inflow of women in employment contributed to reducing

  inequality among households rather than augmenting it. Observed

  increases in inequality are instead driven by the increased polarization

  between high- and low-income families and by changes in the income

  dispersion within family types, suggesting that important social

  stratifiers are at work other than gender. Despite key institutional

  differences, this holds true for all five countries. (C) 2016 Elsevier

  Ltd. All rights reserved.'
affiliation: 'Scherer, S (Corresponding Author), Univ Trento, Via Verdi 26, I-38122
  Trento, Italy.

  Grotti, Raffaele; Scherer, Stefani, Univ Trento, Via Verdi 26, I-38122 Trento, Italy.'
author: Grotti, Raffaele and Scherer, Stefani
author-email: stefani.scherer@unitn.it
author_list:
- family: Grotti
  given: Raffaele
- family: Scherer
  given: Stefani
da: '2023-09-28'
doi: 10.1016/j.rssm.2016.06.001
eissn: 1878-5654
files: []
issn: 0276-5624
journal: RESEARCH IN SOCIAL STRATIFICATION AND MOBILITY
keywords: 'Income inequality; Gender equality; Labor market participation;

  Earnings'' similarity; Assortative mating; Household change'
keywords-plus: 'INCOME INEQUALITY; ASSORTATIVE MARRIAGE; EARNINGS INEQUALITY; WIVES

  EARNINGS; TRENDS; ATTAINMENT'
language: English
month: SEP
number-of-cited-references: '60'
pages: 13-26
papis_id: d9e0a47da8101d71094419316353aff4
ref: Grotti2016doesgender
times-cited: '19'
title: Does gender equality increase economic inequality? Evidence from five countries
type: Article
unique-id: WOS:000383816500002
usage-count-last-180-days: '1'
usage-count-since-2013: '51'
volume: '45'
web-of-science-categories: Sociology
year: '2016'