Informality, gendered labor-income distribution, and territorial carbon emissions: evidence from a cross-national panel
Environmental Sociology, 2026 (ESCI, Scopus)
- Yayın Türü: Makale / Tam Makale
- Basım Tarihi: 2026
- Doi Numarası: 10.1080/23251042.2026.2747004
- Dergi Adı: Environmental Sociology
- Derginin Tarandığı İndeksler: Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI), Scopus
- Anahtar Kelimeler: Informal economy, female labor income share, territorial carbon emissions, gendered labor markets, cross-national panel, environmental sociology
- Boğaziçi Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet
Özet
The paper examines the association between women’s share of labor income and territorial CO2emissions per capita, with special attention to the informal economy. A structural model of formal and informal production, developed in the paper, shows that the sign of this association is determined by relative emissions intensities, the productivity gap between sectors, and the propensities to consume out of male and female wage income, none of which need be common across economies. Using an unbalanced panel of 146 countries observed from 1991 to 2017 and a two-way fixed-effects model, the paper finds a positive interaction between informality and the female labor income share. The marginal association is nonetheless statistically indistinguishable from zero across most of the observed informality range and becomes positive only when the informal economy is large. Moreover, the interaction does not survive once country-specific slopes, outcome persistence, or heterogeneous exposure to common shocks are allowed for. The paper reads this sensitivity as evidence that the environmental significance of women’s labor income depends on the institutional organization of production rather than being fixed across national contexts.