Are women more exposed to firm shocks?

Seminar summary

Workers care deeply about job and pay stability. Given potentially differing risk attitudes, we investigate whether firm wage and employment insurance enjoyed by workers differs by gender. We find that women are less protected than men against idiosyncratic shocks to their employers—a gender gap in firm insurance. The elasticity of women’s wages with respect to variations in firm’s performance is 95% higher than that of men, and the sensitivity of dismissal to firm shocks is 37% higher for female than for male employees. These gender differences are larger for employees with children, in small firms, and in firms without female executives.

How at to attend this seminar

This seminar will take place online on Wednesday 20 March 2024 at 2pm.

The seminar is free to attend and we ask that you contact Dr Anna Sarkisyan for the zoom link).

Speaker bio

Professor Rui Silva

Rui Silva is a Finance faculty at Nova School of Business and Economics in his home town of Lisbon. Before joining Nova he was an Assistant Professor of Finance at London Business School. He has taught numerous courses in Economics and Finance at Nova, The University of Chicago, and the London Business School. His research focuses on corporate finance, corporate governance, entrepreneurial finance and innovation. Rui earned a B.A. in Economics from Universidade Nova de Lisboa and a M.A. and PhD in Economics from The University of Chicago.