published in: Comparative Economic Studies, 2007, 49 (1), 128-155
Post-communist labor markets provide an interesting laboratory since unemployment rates
grew from zero to double digits and gender differences began to vary greatly across these
countries. We provide the first systematic analysis of the determinants of the gender
unemployment gap in the Czech Republic using a method that decomposes unemployment
rates into transition probabilities (flows) between labor market states, which we calculate
using Labor Force Survey data. We extend the analysis to other post-communist economies
by evaluating the flows available from existing studies with the decomposition framework. We
further examine the flows in the Czech Republic by estimating gender-specific multinomial
logit models to learn which factors (demographic, regional, cyclical) other than gender and
marital status affect unemployment. We find that women’s lower probability of exiting
unemployment for a job explains the lion’s share of the gender gap in the unemployment
rates in the Czech Republic and the other post-communist countries for which studies exist.
This is also the principal factor explaining married women’s higher unemployment rates
compared to married men in the Czech Republic. On the other hand, single men and
women’s rates are higher than married men and women’s because they are twice as likely to
lose/leave a job for unemployment. We find that age and education are systematically
important in explaining flows of both men and women in all these economies, as it is in the
more developed industrial economies. The less educated are more likely to be laid off or quit
and less likely to find a job. Whereas younger individuals are more likely to be laid off or quit,
they are also more likely to find a job.
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