The possibility to earn a living and support a family independently is still a utopia for many women all around the world. Many organizations are constantly fighting for awareness of these issues and strive for an improvement in women’s economic equality. One of these organizations is the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) which in its preamble acknowledges that "discrimination violates the principles of equality of rights and respect for human dignity".By the tenth anniversary of the CEDAW, almost one hundred nations have agreed to be bound by its provision. Some governments have achieved their goals by replacing discriminatory laws and policies in order to guarantee gender equality. Others have even gone the extra mile by promoting legislation which in turn would make it easier for women to be able to develop their careers. For instance, some have provided longer maternity leave, and in a few exceptional cases, some others gave the possibility of joint parental leave, creating a co-responsibility between men and women. Nevertheless, some governments have not done enough to balance the gender gap. Some even keep discriminatory laws on the books despite having come to powerlifting the flag of social justice and gender equality. This has been the case of many of the so-called “Pink Tide governments” that ruled in the majority of South America during the first two decades of the 21st century. Despite the left turn of these governments, women in the region are still exposed to segregation and jobs with lower status or a lower payment. This paper focuses on this particular period of South American political history, with a focus on the government policies issued to fight the increasing gender gap on women's economic participation and opportunities. In order to account for the actions taken by these governments towards gender equality policies, we will analyze the maternity and parental leave laws implemented during this period, as we understand that women’s social and economic rights are closely related to their status and conditions at work. Finally, we argue that in this case, the color pink has not been representing women in Latin America.

Over the past two decades Rwanda has done outstanding work that has promoted female empowerment. The development resulted in a majorit of women in parliament, ensuring girls' education and high female participation in the labor force. An inclusive private sector could further promote sustainable development and help meet the country's emerging goals. The field of literature on how enterprises within the private sector perfrom is borad. Several studies find that women are underperforming, and that accesing finance is a major challenge for female entrepreneurs in developing regions. This paper research if there is a gender gap in sales performance amongst Rwandan enterprises in 2019 and how bank funding affect firms' perfromance in term of annual sales. A cross-sectional study was conducted by utilizing the World Bank Enterprise Survey form 2019 constituting of 365 Rwandan firms. Ths tudy adopts OLS, quantile and interaction regression to examine the relationships between annual sales and gender of the entrepreneur. The results showed a rather large perfromance gap and that bank funding have a substational effect on a firm's perfromance. However, the study could not establish a significant interaction between bank funding and female led firms. In order to diminish the established gap, policies are needed to promote gender equality wihtin Rwandas's formal private sector.

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I cover three topics in empirical microeconomics. In the first chapter, titled Investor Attention to Firm versus Market-wide Information Shocks: Evidence from North Korean Missile Tests, I study whether attention towards salient political events leads to underutilization of firm-specific information in the South Korean stock market. I find that companies with earnings surprises in the top quartile experience a 1.6% increase in the abnormal return on the announcement day, but a same-day missile test takes away 70% of the positive response. In the second chapter, titled Does Cultural Proximity Mitigate the Effect of Immigration on Electoral Outcomes? (with Gerard Domènech), we study the effect of immigration on electoral outcomes using individual-level administrative data in Spain. In a multiple instrumentations framework, we find that recent immigrants who arrived within two years are associated with an increase in the vote share of the extremist parties. Such an effect persists for additional two years but dissipates in the long-term. When split by regions of origin, African immigrants have the greatest impact, followed by Latin American immigrants. European immigrants do not affect the extremist vote shares. An analysis of the unemployment rate and the number of children suggests that immigrants tend to assimilate over time. The findings are consistent with the hypothesis that cultural proximity mitigates the political reaction to immigrants. In the third chapter, titled The Effect of Daddy Quota on Gender Labor Market Outcomes (with Petra Niedermeyerova), we study the impact of a father-specific parental leave policy on labor market outcomes in Quebec, Canada. Using a province-level difference-in-difference approach, we find that the so-called daddy quota increases the probability of employment for women and decreases the wage of younger men. The results suggest that the daddy quota promoted equal opportunities for women in the labor market. In a theoretical framework, we show that policy-driven changes in gender norms are consistent with our findings.

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This thesis updates and expands upon the developmental theory of the gender gap in party and ideological identification originally posited by Norris and Inglehart (2000) to explain why women in advanced industrial nations are more likely to hold more leftist ideological identification than men. A comparative cross-national analysis using data from the World Values Survey (2004-2008) extends Norris and Inglehart's study, with an examination of the gender gap in advanced industrial, post-communist and developing nations. To further explore the nature of the gender gap in the United States, data from the American National Election Study (Cumulative File and 2012 cross-section) are used to explain the evolution of the ideological and partisan gender gap over time. Moreover, such a focus can also help explain any subnational difference in the gender gap in the two regions that have experienced a partisan realignment: the South toward the Republican party and the Northeast toward the Democratic party. Findings from the comparative analysis support the notion in advanced-industrial nations the gender gap has persisted, and indeed grown, with women identifying more with the left than men. This gender gap is robust as it remains significant even when utilizing a multivariate analysis to control for variables that measure social structure and cultural attitudes. However, in post-communist and developing nations a gender gap is less evident although some evidence shows that women in post-communist societies are experiencing a secular realignment and are slowly moving toward leftist ideological orientations. Findings from the analysis of the U.S. demonstrate little regional differences, with women in the South being more liberal and increasingly more Democratic, while women in the Northeast are also more liberal and increasingly Democratic in their party identifications.

Entrepreneurs who need funding often turn to the venture capital industry. In Sweden, women entrepreneurs represent a third of the total number of entrepreneurs. Meanwhile, women-owned businesses only raise one percent of the total venture capital in Sweden. Previous research has attempted to explain why male entrepreneurs raise more venture capital than women entrepreneurs, however, more research is needed to understand the circumstances for success. This leads to the study’s aim which is to create an understanding of what makes women entrepreneurs successful when raising venture capital, and how they do it, and the research questions, which are How do drivers enable women entrepreneurs to raise venture capital? How do women entrepreneurs overcome the different challenges that they meet when raising venture capital? To reach the study’s aim and answer the research questions a qualitative method was used. Semi-structured interviews with ten respondents, who were women entrepreneurs who had raised venture capital, were conducted. This study contributes new perspectives to the already existing field of entrepreneurship and venture capital, by providing a new framework showing how women entrepreneurs overcome challenges and use drivers for raising venture capital successfully. The results show how the respondents use their entrepreneurial, risk-prone, and highly self-confident personality in their relationship with investors and other entrepreneurs, to successfully raise venture capital. The findings in this study suggest that governmental agencies should provide more network possibilities with venture capitalist firms and investors for women entrepreneurs.

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This dissertation brings new causal evidence on three topics in education and health. In the first chapter, I study how in-utero exposure to floods affects the education and health outcomes of individuals. I focus on the 1982-1983 El Niño event in Peru to exploit a natural experiment. I assess the impacts of plausible and exogenous in-utero exposure to excess rainfall on education achievement at adulthood. I find that individuals exposed in-utero to the 1982-1983 El Niño floods, have less chances to have completed primary education at adulthood with different effects by place of residence and gender. In the second chapter, I study how a low-cost face-to-face intervention, that exposed senior-year high school students to female role models affects career preferences and reduces the gender preference gap for STEM programs in Peru in a randomized controlled trial. I find that exposure to role models increased preference for engineering majors only for those girls in the top math ability quartile; and that the effect was stronger for those who reside geographically close to the role models' university. Finally, in the third chapter, I investigate how to optimally allocate students to academic programs. I evaluate external signals of ability transmitted to students by academic probation rules in Peru using a regression discontinuity design. The analysis suggests that academic probation is associated with higher drop-out rates from programs and a deterioration in subsequent academic performance. I conclude that in a society with predominant gender norms, signals of ability could aid to the retention of only qualified students in selected programs with further implications on aggregate productivity and the allocation of talent. / Doctor of Philosophy / This study sought to understand how exposure to different adverse events in life affects individuals' decision choices. I focus on a developing country, Peru, where returns to education are high and investment in human capital can improve individuals' lives. In the first chapter, I study how prenatal exposure to extreme weather conditions (i.e. the 1982-1983 El Niño floods in Peru) affected the education achievement of those individuals when they were older. This adverse and unpredictable event, affecting the evolution of babies while in-utero, during the nine months of gestation, reduced the probability that the exposed individual had completed primary education. In the second chapter, I implement an experiment in the field to understand the effect of the exposure to role models on the reduction of the gender gap in careers that are male dominated such as Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM). The gender gap in STEM fields is a major cause of concern for policymakers around the world since it not only contributes to talent misallocation but also critically deepens gender-based socioeconomic inequalities. I find that a brief exposure to role models of about 20 minutes increases preferences for engineering majors of high talented female high school students, and I attribute this to inspiration rather than information mechanisms. The evidence suggests that, inspired by role models, high math ability girls had increased self-confidence for succeeding in engineering majors. Finally, in the third chapter I investigate the misallocation of students to academic programs and more specifically the effect of one university policy related to academic probation on attrition rates and subsequent academic performance. Academic probation is a warning received by students failing to make substantial academic progress required for graduation. By receiving academic probation, students get additional information of their capabilities to successfully complete a degree. The analysis suggests that academic probation is associated with higher drop-out rates from programs and a deterioration in subsequent academic performance aiding to the retention of only qualified students in selected fields of study.

Thesis advisor: Matthias von Davier / The transition of major international large-scale assessments (ILSAs) from paper- to computer-based assessments has made process data increasingly available. While process data is potentially valuable for analyzing students’ test-taking behaviors, it also raises ethical concerns and involves considerable costs. This prompts the question: “Does process data add value to the analysis of ILSA data?” In response, this dissertation explores the utility of process data through three studies. Study 1 proposes a multiple-group hierarchical speed-accuracy-revisits model to examine the gender differences in mathematics ability, response speed, revisit propensity, and the relationships among them. The model’s flexibility allows it to be applied in diverse contexts to investigate group differences in test-taking behaviors and achievement beyond gender. Study 2 addresses the overparameterization challenge in ILSA scaling by proposing a new approach: adding process variables to the usual contextual variables and replacing principal component analysis with variable selection for latent regression modeling. The findings show that process variables consistently improved measurement precision; using Lasso, random forests, and ultimately gradient boosting for variable selection achieved or surpassed the measurement precision of the conventional approach but with considerably fewer covariates. Integrating variable selection and process data yielded the highest measurement precision while achieving parsimony, demonstrating the effectiveness of the proposed method. Study 3 investigates students’ test-taking behaviors in the context of girls consistently outperforming boys on average across countries and assessments. Three types of test-taking behaviors were identified through latent class analysis: “Rapid”, “Challenged”, and “Engaged”. Using Bolck-Croon-Hagenaars and three-step methods reveals that girls in the “Rapid” class outperformed boys on average in all countries, while there were no significant gender differences in the “Engaged” class in three of the four countries. The gender gap in reading achievement may diminish to a mild to moderate extent if boys were to behave like girls, highlighting the importance of addressing disengagement issues in ILSAs. Collectively, these three papers advance the use of process data and demonstrate its value for analyzing and reporting results of ILSA data. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2024. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Education.