Author(s)
So Yoon Ahn
Meiqing Ren

We study how the relative wages of women (to those of men) affect the charitable giving patterns of married couples in the US. Using Bartik-style wage measures for men and women, we find that when relative female wages increase, the share of total charitable giving out of family income increases. Moreover, the share of charitable giving to religious organizations, which are preferred by women, increases when labor market conditions become more favorable to women. Our results are consistent with household bargaining explanations, and we provide additional supportive evidence. As a robustness check, we examine the impacts of the negative gender-specific shocks to manufacturing in Autor et al. [2019] and find similar results.

Publication Type
Working Paper
File Description
First version, June 2, 2022
JEL Codes
D12: Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
D13: Household Production and Intrahousehold Allocation
Keywords
relative wages
family income
gender-specific shocks