The Repository @ St. Cloud State

Open Access Knowledge and Scholarship

Date of Award

12-2025

Culminating Project Type

Thesis

Styleguide

apa

Degree Name

Applied Economics: M.S.

Department

Economics

College

School of Public Affairs

First Advisor

Kenneth Rebeck

Second Advisor

Lynn MacDonald

Third Advisor

Mana Komai Molle

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

Keywords and Subject Headings

Paid Family Leave, Female Labor Force Participation, Gender Pay Gap, Wage Gap, California, Financial Sector

Abstract

The United States as a whole has seen a decrease in the gender pay gap since the 1980s. While many policies impact this trend either intentionally or unintentionally, the gender pay gap is still prevalent today. One type of policy potentially impacting the gender pay gap is paid family leave policies that allow new parents to hold their job for a set amount of time while they care for a newborn and receive some level of pay while doing so. Therefore, mothers of young children are likely to see the largest impact of the policy. Previous literature has shown these policies impact female labor force participation rates, but this research seeks to go a step further to analyze the policy impact on the gender pay gap. Using individual-level data from California from 2003 and 2019, the difference-in-difference method is applied to estimate the change in the gender pay gap before the policy began in 2004 and after the policy has been in place for 15 years. Specifically, it will focus on California’s financial sector for two reasons: California’s policy was the first to be made law in the United States which provides the longest timeframe to analyze, and the financial sector has unique characteristics that make it an important sector to study. It was found that while the gender pay gap increased by 8.8 percent for the whole sample, it declined by 10.3 percent for the subsample of individuals who had children under the age of five. After the empirical analysis, a graduate-level economics project is presented in which students utilize the difference-in-difference method on real-world data and then provide a brief paper on the application and results. The project is designed for easy implementation by the instructor with limited grading burden. The key benefit for students is the ability to conduct supported research earlier in their course work and to gain a deeper understanding of the difference-in-difference method.

Comments/Acknowledgements

Thank you to my advisors for your support and guidance along the way.

Download

Share

COinS