MOVE Workshop on Households and Inequality

MOVE Workshop on Households and Inequality

Date: 19-20 May 2010

Venue: Sala de Graus, Facultat d'Economia, Campus de Bellaterra-UAB 

Organizers: Juan Carlos Conesa, Sekyu Choi, Nezih Guner

Sponsors: MOVE, UAB, Generalitat de Catalunya (DIUE), Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation

Program: pdf version

Presentation:

Income inequality has been increasing in almost all industrialized countries since the early 1980s.  This has generated a large and growing literature that tries to understand causes as well as consequences of this process.  As inequality was rising, the household and family structure in industrialized countries was also changing in a fundamental way. First, marriage is less important today. Second, female labor force participation has increased dramatically. As a result of these changes, today’s households are very far from the traditional breadwinner husband and housekeeper wife paradigm. There are important interactions between changing household structure and inequality. Today, an important dimension of inequality is between households with two versus one earner.  Another important aspect of inequality in many countries is between married couples and single mothers.

The purpose of this workshop is to bring together recent contributions on inequality  and changing household structure. The workshop aims to enhance our understanding of inequality and its relation to household decisions on labor supply, human capital accumulation, marriage and divorce, and children,  with a focus on cross-country differences  and public policy.