Job Market Paper

The Impact of Austerity on Gender Inequality in Time Allocation in the United States

Summary: The Great Recession of 2007-2009 caused large declines in state revenues which prompted many states to implement austerity measures to meet their balanced budget requirements. Decreases in public spending can have heterogeneous gender effects due to existing inequalities in time allocated for unpaid work. In this paper, I combine data from the American Time Use Survey for 2005-2015 and the State and Local Expenditures database to investigate the relationship between decreases in state education spending and time spent on child care. My analysis utilizes an event study approach to compare changes in time allocated for childcare activities by adults residing in states with and without spending reductions on K-12 and early education programs. Prior to the decreases in education spending, I find that time spent on childcare activities across austerity and non-austerity states trended similarly. However, in the years following the spending cuts, residents of austerity states were spending more time on child care relative to residents of non-austerity states. The increase in child care in austerity states was unevenly distributed across genders. Men were allocating 1.8 additional hours weekly while women were allocating 3 additional hours weekly to child care. I further document long-lasting implications for gender equality: effects on the gender gap in childcare time persist even six years after the initial reduction in education spending. My findings suggest the need for gender budgeting at all stages of the fiscal budget cycle so that governments can pursue both economic and social goals even during times of crisis.

Publications

Cui Bono: Do Open Source Software Incubator Policies and Procedures Benefit the Projects or the Incubator?
Anamika Sen, Curtis Atkisson, Charlie Schweik
International Journal of the Commons (2022), 16(1)
IASC Knowledge Commons Conference 2020 (Runner Up, Best Student Presentation)

A Study on Happiness and Related Factors Among Indian College Students (undergraduate thesis)
Bidisha Chakraborty, Souparna Maji, Anamika Sen, Isha Mallik, Sayantan Baidya, Esha Dwibedi
Journal of Quantitative Economics (2019), 17(1)

Working Papers

Shock Absorbers or Transmitters? The Role of Foreign Banks during COVID-19
Anamika Sen, Weijia Yao, Juan Yépez
IMF Working Paper No. 2022/188

Deconstructing written rules and hierarchy in peer produced software communities
Mahasweta Chakraborti, Beril Bulat, Qiankun Zhong, Anamika Sen, Seth Frey
arXiv 2022

Works in Progress

Foreign Bank Entry and Credit Allocation
(with Esra Uğurlu)

The mentors make the decisions: How people serving in dual roles of mentor and decision maker apply organizational policies to their own mentees
(with Brenda Bushouse and Curtis Atkisson)