Sexual inequality in the workplace: An employer-specific analysis of pay differences

This paper reports an analysis of employer-specific sex differences in the processes governing the salary attainment of personnel of a large company. The two dominant theories of inequality both view discrimination as the operative cause of pay differences, but locate the structural source of discrimination at different points in the employer-employee exchange space. The wage discrimination hypothesis asserts that the economic disadvantage of women issues directly from the pay practices of employers, with women receiving “unequal pay for equal work.” The crowding, or employment segregation, hypothesis asserts that inequality issues from the employment practices of employers; disparities in the allocation of jobs and promotions results in segregation along sexual lines, with women relegated to lower-paying positions. The findings show that both wage discrimination and sexual segregation of the company's job and rank structures contribute to inequality, but that the latter is more important. The implications for the issue of discrimination are briefly discussed.     

Network effects across the earnings distribution: Payoffs to visible and invisible job finding assistance

This study makes three critical contributions to the “Do Contacts Matter?” debate. First, the widely reported null relationship between informal job searching and wages is shown to be mostly the artifact of a coding error and sample selection restrictions. Second, previous analyses examined only active informal job searching without fully considering the benefits derived from unsolicited network assistance (the “invisible hand of social capital”) – thereby underestimating the network effect. Third, wage returns to networks are examined across the earnings distribution. Longitudinal data from the NLSY reveal significant wage returns for network-based job finding over formal job searching, especially for individuals who were informally recruited into their jobs (non-searchers). Fixed effects quantile regression analyses show that contacts generate wage premiums among middle and high wage jobs, but not low wage jobs. These findings challenge conventional wisdom on contact effects and advance understanding of how social networks affect wage attainment and inequality.     

Racial double standards and applicant selection

Using double standards to judge job applicants can prevent the selection of qualified candidates who possess disadvantaged status characteristics. Experimental studies have shown that when assessors compare equally qualified women and men for jobs, the men are more likely to be recommended for hiring. We propose that the theoretical processes affecting choices by gender also will apply with candidates differentiated by race. We test that and other predictions using a modification of the application folders design used in double standards research. We found that double standards affected job recommendations and judged suitability of candidates, but not their judged competence. We believe that the process operates outside of conscious choice of candidates, and we used that insight to test an intervention to overcome using double standards in situations of race-differentiated candidates.     

Unemployment and men's entrance into female-dominated jobs

Despite the contraction of many male-dominated occupations, men have made limited progress in entering female-dominated jobs. Using monthly employment histories from the SIPP, we examine whether individual economic conditions—such as a period of unemployment—are associated with men subsequently pursuing female-dominated work. Specifically, we ask whether men are more likely to enter female-dominated jobs after unemployment, compared to men who take a new job directly from employment. We find that unemployment significantly increases the odds of men entering female-dominated work among men who make job transitions. By examining changes in occupational prestige as well as wage differences before and after unemployment, we also find that entering a female-dominated job (compared to other job types) may help men mitigate common scarring effects of unemployment such as wage losses and occupational prestige downgrades. Accordingly, this study reveals a critical occupational route that may allow men to remain upwardly mobile after involuntary unemployment.     

Motivation vs. relevance: Using strong ties to find a job in Urban China

While the idea that contacts matter in finding a job is intuitively appealing, we still do not know—after decades of research—how and why strong ties benefit job seekers. To resolve this confusion, we need to theorize how specific characteristics of ties are related to the mechanisms that make job search through contacts effective. We have reasons to expect that, while a contact’s motivation influences the likelihood that a job seeker receives an offer, her homophily with the job seeker on occupation and other job-relevant attributes influences the quality of the offer. The use of strong ties among university students to find jobs in China provides a unique opportunity to empirically isolate the relationship between contact characteristics and the mechanisms through which contacts benefit the job seeker. I tested my hypotheses with data on both the successful and unsuccessful job searches of 478 graduates of China’s flagship universities, who, as first-time job seekers, primarily used strong ties. Survey results are consistent with my hypotheses: job seekers who used strong ties to look for jobs had more offers—but not better offers—than those who used only formal methods.     

Compensating differentials, labor market segmentation, and wage inequality

Two literatures on work and the labor market draw attention to the importance of non-pecuniary job amenities. Social psychological perspectives on work suggest that workers have preferences for a range of job amenities (e.g. Halaby, 2003). The compensating differentials hypothesis predicts that workers navigate tradeoffs among different job amenities such that wage inequality overstates inequality in utility (Smith, 1979). This paper joins these perspectives by constructing a new measure of labor market success that evaluates the degree to which workers’ job amenity preferences and outcomes match. This measure of subjective success is used to predict workers’ job satisfaction and to test the hypothesis that some degree of labor force inequality in wages is due to preference-based tradeoffs among all job amenities. Findings demonstrate that the new measure predicts workers’ job satisfaction and provides evidence for the presence of compensating differentials in the primary and intermediate, but not secondary, labor markets.     

What You Know or Who You Know? Occupation-specific work experience and job matching through social networks

While work experience is generally seen as an indicator of human capital, it may also reflect the accumulation of social capital. This study examines how work experience facilitates informal access to employment—that is, being matched with a new employer through an informal search or informal recruitment through the non-search process (without engaging in a job search). Results from fixed effects regression on panel data from the NLSY show that experience is related to informal entry into new jobs, though in a very specific way. The odds of being informally recruited into a new job improve as work experience in related occupations rises, but this relationship holds only among men. These findings highlight the social benefits of occupation-specific work experience that accrue to men but not to women, suggesting an alternative explanation for the gender disparity in wage returns to experience.     

Why Do(n't) they leave?: Motherhood and women's job mobility

Although the relationship between motherhood and women's labor market exits has received a great deal of popular and empirical attention in recent years, far less is known about the relationship between motherhood and women's job changes. In this paper, I use panel data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (1979) (NLSY79) and Cox regression models to examine how motherhood influences the types of job changes and employment exits women make and how this varies by racial-ethnic group. I find preschool-age children are largely immobilizing for white women, as they discourage these women from making the types of voluntary job changes that are often associated with wage growth. No such effects were found for Black or Hispanic women.     

中国城镇居民劳动参与工资弹性的地区差异

中国各地区间劳动力市场相对分割,劳动力在地区间自由流动存在制度障碍,同时由于各地区经济发展水平的差异导致工资率存在较大差异,进而可能导致各地区城镇居民劳动参与行为存在较大差异。应用微观经济计量方法分析中国东中西部地区城镇居民的劳动参与行为,并估算不同地区城镇居民劳动参与的工资弹性。结果表明:在每个地区内部,女性劳动参与的工资弹性均明显大于男性劳动参与的工资弹性;随着地区工资率的上升,女性劳动参与率明显上升,劳动参与工资弹性明显下降;随着地区工资率的上升,男性劳动参与率呈现出上升趋势,但劳动参与工资弹性没有显示出持续下降趋势。因此,消除户籍制度形成的劳动力市场分割,提高工资水平,不仅能够有效地促进城镇居民的劳动参与和就业,而且有助于抑制地区之间收入差距的持续扩大。     

The motherhood wage penalty: A meta-analysis

Mothers tend to receive lower wages than comparable childless women. This ‘motherhood wage gap’ has been reported in numerous studies. We summarize the existing empirical evidence on this topic using meta-analysis and test for several mechanisms which can be responsible for the persistence of the wage gap. Based on 208 wage effects of having exactly one child and 245 wage effects of the total number of children, we find an average motherhood wage gap of around 3.6–3.8%. While the gaps associated with the total number of children are mostly explained by the loss of mothers' human capital during child-related career breaks, the gaps associated with one child are predominantly driven by mothers' choice of jobs and occupations that pay less. The residual gap is smallest in Nordic countries, where public policies actively support gender equality and reconciliation of work and family, as well as Belgium and France, and largest in the post-socialist countries of Central and Eastern Europe and Anglo-Saxon countries.     

Globalization, labor market transformation, and metropolitan earnings inequality

Numerous studies have noted the increasing levels of inequality in American society, but relatively few have linked this inequality to the dynamics of the global economy. In this study, we examine the impact of five measures of globalization (global capital, foreign direct investment, exports, foreign born non-citizens, and foreign born citizens) and six measures of labor market transformation (deindustrialization, corporate restructuring, bureaucratic burden, casualization, bad jobs, and multiple job holding) on metropolitan-level earnings inequality of full-time, full-year workers 16 years and older. Our study makes several major contributions to the literature. First, we update and extend the long line of studies on metropolitan earnings inequality. Second, we show that these various dimensions of globalization and labor market transformation exert independent and mainly polarizing effects on the earnings distributions of metropolitan areas, net of controls for labor market structure and sociodemographic variables. Third, we demonstrate the benefits of looking at the causes of inequality in the upper and lower tails of the earnings distribution. Finally, we develop a procedure to estimate counterfactual values of earnings inequality for all major metropolitan areas in the US in 2000. In the process, the paper provides a comprehensive accounting of the impact of globalization and labor market transformation on metropolitan earnings inequality.     

The stigma of mental illness in the labor market

Mental illness labels are accompanied by devaluation and discrimination. We extend research on reactions to mental illness by utilizing a field experiment (N = 635) to test effects of mental illness labels on labor market discrimination. This study involved sending fictitious applications to job listings, some applications indicating a history of mental illness and some indicating a history of physical injury. In line with research indicating that mental illness leads to stigma, we predicted fewer callbacks to candidates with mental illness. We also predicted relatively fewer callbacks for applicants with mental illness when the jobs involved a greater likelihood for interpersonal contact with the employer. Results showed significant discrimination against applicants with mental illness, but did not indicate an effect of potential proximity to the employer. This contributes a valuable finding in a natural setting to research on labor market discrimination towards people with mental illness.     

Career pathways for temporary workers: Exploring heterogeneous mobility dynamics with sequence analysis

Because temporary jobs are time-delimited, their implications for workers’ economic security depend not only on their current characteristics, but also their place in longer-term patterns of mobility. Past research has typically asked whether temporary jobs are a bridge to better employment or trap workers in ongoing insecurity, investigating this question by analyzing single transitions. We demonstrate that this approach is ill-suited to assessing the often more complex and turbulent employment patterns characteristic of temporary workers. Our analysis instead employs sequence methods to compare a representative sample of temporary workers’ month-by-month mobility patterns through 8 potential (non)employment states over five years. We derive a typology of trajectories and describe their relative precariousness in relation to employment stability and wage and earnings levels and growth. While some of the pathways correspond quite closely to frameworks used by past research, others reveal new and important distinctions. Multinomial logit models reveal job, employer, and worker characteristics associated with different pathways. Age, gender, and type of temporary work stand out as important factors shaping subsequent mobility patterns.     

Wage change in the late career: A model for the outcomes of job sequences

This paper elaborates a model for the outcomes of job sequences and illustrates its utility by an empirical analysis of the determinants of wage change for men in their late careers. We argue that job sequences represent the basic components of careers and that a focus on these sequences is useful for explaining the determinants of socioeconomic inequality over the life cycle. Our model permits us to estimate the effects on wage change of a wide array of personal resources and measures of the opportunity structure. We further assess how these types of factors differentially affect wage change for various patterns of labor market behavior and for blacks vs whites. Our empirical analysis of data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Middle-Aged Men suggests the importance of patterns of job sequences for wage change and for the explanation of racial differentials in career advancement.     

Insecure times? Workers' perceived job and labor market security in 23 OECD countries

By examining the association between employees' perceptions of job security and central labor market policies and characteristics, this paper seeks to understand the mechanisms through which institutions generate confidence and positive expectations among individuals regarding their economic future. The analyses distinguish between different facets of perceived job security and different institutional mechanisms. My multilevel analyses of a data set that contains information on 12,431 individuals and 23 countries show that some labor market policies and characteristics are more likely than others to provide workers with subjective security. Unemployment assistance in particular is an effective means of reducing workers' worries about job loss. Dismissal protection, by contrast, only unleashes its psychologically protective effects under certain conditions. The paper's main conclusion is that the effectiveness of policies varies and that different types of labor market institutions serve as complements rather than as substitutes.     

Are there sex differences in the utilization of educational capital among college-educated workers?

This paper introduces the concept of educational utilization as an overlooked part of the education-to-work transition and a potential mechanism by which occupational sex segregation is generated among the college-educated labor force. The paper begins with a critical discussion of the operationalization approaches that have been used in prior research that implicitly measures educational utilization. Multiple empirical measure of the concept are then developed using data from the O*NET and the National Surveys of College Graduates. The explanatory power of each measure is assessed using conditional logit models of occupational attainment. A combined measure is then used to assess sex differences in educational utilization using data from the 1993 and 2003 National Surveys of College Graduates for 2 cohorts of college graduates—those who earned their baccalaureate or post-baccalaureate degrees and entered the labor market in the years 1985–1993 and 1995–2003. The analysis identifies sex differences in educational utilization that vary across field, degree level and cohort and concludes with an examination of the implications of sex differences in educational utilization for occupational segregation.     

Marketization,occupational segregation,and gender earnings inequality in urban China

This article analyzes a large sample of the 2005 population mini-census data and prefecture-level statistics of China to investigate gender earnings inequality in the context of economic marketization, paying special attention to the changing role of occupational segregation in the process. We approximate marketization by employment sectors and also construct an index of marketization at the prefecture level. Results show that, despite the tremendous economic growth, marketization has exacerbated gender earnings inequality in urban China's labor markets. Gender earnings inequality is the smallest in government/public institutions, followed by public enterprises, and then private enterprises. The gender inequality also increases with the prefecture's level of marketization. Multilevel analyses show that occupational segregation plays an important role in affecting gender earnings inequality: the greater the occupational segregation, the more disadvantaged women are relative to men in earnings in a prefecture's labor market. Moreover, the impact of occupational segregation on gender earnings inequality increases with the prefectural level of marketization. These findings contribute to understanding the dynamics of gender earnings inequality and have important implications for policy to promote gender equality in urban China.     

Aggregate male and female labor force participation functions: An analysis of structural differences, 1947–1977

The hypothesis that the structure of the forces that affect male and female labor force participation rates are distinct has been corroborated in numerous studies using microdata. This paper examines the validity of this structural distinctiveness hypothesis in the context of aggregate, time series data on male and female labor force participation in the post-World War II United States. Standard economic and sociological theories are used to specify sex-specific participation functions that contain indexes of the sex-specific general opportunity for employment, the sex-specific rates of participation in the armed forces and in postsecondary schooling institutions, the average real wage rate, the average number of hours worked, and the fertility rate. It is found that the female rate is more responsive than the male rate to the general employment opportunities and average hours indexes, but less responsive to the wage rate. Also, the female rate responds positively to the armed forces participation and college enrollment rates, whereas the male rate is negatively related to these indexes. However, no evidence is found for another component of the structural distinctiveness hypothesis, namely, that the fertility rate bears a consistent negative relationship to the female participation rate. While this relationship may have held during the early postwar years, it seems to have been substantially attentuated since the early 1960s. Prospects for convergence of the male and female participation functions are evaluated. Although current social trends suggest that the female function eventually will resemble more closely the male funtion, it is concluded that substantial sex differences are likely to persist for at least another decade. Implications of this for the structure of the labor force participation functions used in macroeconometric forecasting models are discussed.     

Gender differences in the impact of job mobility on earnings: The role of occupational segregation

In recent years, researchers have begun to explore the extent to which the impact of switching firms (inter-firm mobility) on wages varies between men and women. Using data from the NLSY79 from 1979 to 2012, this paper extends existing research by exploring how occupational segregation and individual level factors contribute to gender differences in the impact of voluntary inter-firm mobility on wages. The paper also examines how patterns vary depending on education level. Findings suggest that men without a college education receive greater wage gains from voluntary inter-firm mobility than similarly educated women although there is no overall gender difference for individuals with a bachelor's degree. The wage returns to voluntary inter-firm mobility for both men and women increase as a function of the male representation in the occupation. For individuals without a college education, the male premium to voluntary inter-firm mobility is largest in highly male dominated occupations. However, women with a bachelor's degree employed in highly male dominated occupations use voluntary inter-firm mobility to narrow the gender wage gap.