Estimating sex discrimination in professional occupations with the dictionary of occupational titles

Although women have gained entrance into some of the top professional occupations, they appear to have achieved few economic gains from this progress. The extensive occupational segregation existing between men and women in all occupations handicaps investigations of the sources of this persistent inequality. This article proposes an exploratory method for identifying occupations containing comparable work and presents an analysis of male‐female wage differences within a subset of the highly skilled professional occupations. Using a cluster analysis of the characteristics of jobs available in the 1977 Dictionary of Occupational Titles, three clusters of high‐skill occupations are identified. Next, a sample of labor‐force participants, aged 25 to 35 years and employed in these occupations, is used in an ordinary least squares (OLS) regression of hourly wages on a standard set of labor market traits. These results are used to decompose the male‐female wage gap. A liberal interpretation of the decomposition estimates is that between 39.9% and 58.8% of the gap is attributed to comparable‐worth discrimination.     

Occupational differences in the wage penalty for obese women

Prior research indicates overweight women are penalized with lower wages. The connection between weight and wages is tested for several occupational categories. The results suggest weight significantly reduces pay only for women in sales and service occupations, a finding consistent with customer discrimination. Obese females who are self-employed also receive a significant wage penalty in customer-oriented occupations, suggesting the pay discrepancy is not originating from employer discrimination.     

Using occupational structure to measure employability with an application to the Brazilian labor market

We propose measuring individual employability as a weighted average across occupations of a worker’s predicted wage for each occupation. Weights are given by the individual occupational probability distribution. Under this measure, a worker is more employable than another if she has a greater chance to obtain a better paid occupation. After normalization, expected employability corresponds to the population correlation between occupational predicted wages and the chance to obtain employment in these occupations and serves as a measure of the allocative efficiency of labor market. We apply the methodology to Brazil and found that employability increased and became less unequally distributed from 2002 to 2011. We used a decomposition method to investigate the causes of these changes. Although average normalized employability is weakly positive, it has increased for the period, which suggests that there is room for efficiency gains in the allocation of workers to occupations in the Brazilian labor market.     

Cognitive skills and Black–White wages in the United States labor market

Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY), this study analyzes the effects of cognitive skills on the wages of Whites and African Americans in white and blue collar occupations. The results show that cognitive skills, net of education, are important predictors of wages across all occupations. Mathematics skills, in particular contribute to significant wage premiums for workers in white and blue-collar occupations, with the exception of Blacks in blue-collar professions. English skills lead to significant wage premiums only for Blacks in blue-collar occupations. While the incorporation of cognitive skills narrows the Black-White wage gap considerably, the effects of skills on the wages of Blacks and Whites are far from uniform. The results also show that despite using detailed controls for the quality of education, an extra year of schooling yields the highest wage premium for Whites in all occupations.     

Wage Differentials of Transportation Industries: Deregulation Versus Regulation

This article investigates the wage differentials of similar occupations in three for-hire transportation carrier industries, railroad, truck, and motor bus, under regulation and deregulation. The estimation results indicate that the union wage gaps among all occupations have widened under deregulation. Specifically, the union wages of railroad occupations have increased relative to those of truck drivers and the union wages of truck drivers have increased relative to those of motor bus drivers. Further, wage gaps for all occupations for this period are greater among nonunion than among union workers.     

Salesmen,Saleswomen, or Sales Workers? Determinants of the Sex Composition of Sales Occupations

This study examines determinants of occupational sex composition in an expanding area of the economy—sales occupations. We used census data to determine which worker and occupational characteristics predicted the percentage of women in sales occupations in 1980 and in 1990, and which variables contributed to changes in the percentage of women in sales occupations over time. Although sales occupations experienced a disproportionate decline in occupational sex segregation during the 1980s, we found that the same variables predicted the percentage of women in sales occupations in both 1980 and 1990. Average years of schooling, average hourly pay, the percentage of unemployed workers, and the percentage of self-employed workers influenced the percentage of female workers in sales occupations in 1980 and in 1990, both for cross-sectional and dynamic models. In addition, a worker characteristic index that combines percentage White, percentage married, and average age of workers shows surprising effects on the percentage of women in sales occupations. We discuss the implications of these findings for occupational sex segregation, and suggest that a multidimensional queuing perspective offers the most useful interpretation of our results.     

Occupations,Human Capital and Skills

Economists have long recognized that occupations can be used as proxies for skills in wage regressions. Yet the potential existence of non-market factors such as discrimination and occupational choice (sorting) on the basis of job attributes that are separate from, but potentially correlated with, wages makes occupations an imperfect control for skills. In this paper, we consider whether inter-occupational wage differentials that are unexplained by measured human capital are indeed due to differences in unmeasured skill. Using the National Compensation Survey, a large, nationally-representative dataset on jobs and ten different components of job requirements, we compare the effects on residual wage variation of including occupation indicators and these skill requirements measures. We find that although these skill requirements vary across 3-digit occupations, occupation indicators decrease wage residuals by far more than can be explained by skill alone. This indicates that “controlling for occupation” does not equate to controlling for only these skill measures, but also for other factors. Additionally, we find that there is considerable within-occupation variation in skill requirements, and that the amount of variation is not constant across skill levels. As a result, including occupation indicators in a wage model introduces heteroskedasticity that must be accounted for. We suggest that caution be applied when using and interpreting occupation indicators as controls in wage regressions.     

Intersections on the Class Escalator: Gender,Race, and Occupational Segregation in Paid Care Work

As U.S. manufacturing and production industries have declined, the growth of the care sector has increasingly become an important source of jobs for workers without a college degree. Often requiring some form of postsecondary credentialing, many care occupations can provide better wages, job stability, and possible upward mobility for less educated workers. However, employment patterns in paid care work are both gendered and racialized: women and workers of color are overrepresented in care occupations with fewer entry barriers, benefits, and lower pay. Although these patterns are well documented, the mechanisms producing them are less well understood. Using event history analysis and the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79), this study evaluates the explanatory power of neoclassical economic, status attainment, and social closure theories of occupational segregation for black women’s and men’s greater hazard or “risk” of entering care occupations, relative to white workers. Net of individual and closure mechanisms, significant residual effects suggest labor market discrimination remains a primary explanation for the over-representation of black workers in less credentialed care jobs with fewer benefits.     

Occupational Human Capital and Wages: The Role of Skills Transferability Across Occupations

This paper examines the effect of accumulated human capital, and particularly occupational human capital, on the workers’ wages. Unlike previous studies that apply occupational tenure as a proxy for occupational human capital, this paper applies the concept of Shaw’s (1984) occupational human capital to capture the transferability of occupational skills and estimates a new measure of occupational human capital, so-called occupational investment. Using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) from 1979 to 2000, the key findings of this paper suggest that occupational skills from the previous jobs can also affect the workers’ wages at the current job and that occupational investment is one of the important sources of wages supporting the Shaw’s original work on wage determination. Specifically, 5 years of (3-digit) occupational investment relative to current occupational tenure could lead to a wage increase of 7.7 to 18.4 %. I also find that the general labor market experience accounts for a large share of workers’ wages.     

Stagnation only on the surface? The implications of skill and family responsibilities for the gender wage gap in Sweden, 1974–2010

The wage differential between women and men persists in advanced economies despite the inflow of women into qualified occupations in recent years. Using five waves of the Swedish Level‐of‐Living Survey (LNU), this paper explores the gender wage gap in Sweden during the 1974–2010 period overall and by skill level. The empirical analyses showed that the general gender wage gap has been nearly unchanged for the past 30 years. However, the gender difference in wage in less qualified occupations fell considerably, whereas the gender pay gap remained stable for men and women in qualified occupations. The larger significance of family responsibilities for wages in qualified occupations is one likely explanation for this result.     

RACE AND GENDER DIFFERENCES IN WAGES: The Role of Occupational Sorting at the Point of Hire

Previous work suggests that occupational sorting and differences in starting salary play a large role in race and gender wage gaps. This study uses unique data from the human resources department of a financial company to examine the role of occupational sorting in race and gender differences in initial salary offers. While this company exhibits large race and gender differences in salary offers, controlling for occupational differences accounts for all of the race effects and reduces the gender effect to substantive insignificance. These findings underscore the importance of occupational sorting mechanisms in creating race and gender differences in wages.     

The Effect of Housework on Wages: A Study of Migrants and Native-Born Individuals in Germany

To increase labour market participation among migrants, an increase in female labour market participation is important, with wages being a significant incentive. In research on the gender wage gap, the consideration of housework has been a milestone. Gender differences in housework time have always been much greater among migrants than among native-born individuals. Based on data obtained from the German Socio-Economic Panel from 1995 to 2017, this study questioned whether housework affects the wages of migrant full-time workers differently than those of their native-born counterparts. To consider the possible endogeneity of housework in the wage equation, the analysis estimated, in addition to an OLS model, a hybrid model to estimate within effects. Significant negative effects of housework on wages resulted for migrant women and native-born individuals. The effects for migrant men were significantly smaller or insignificant, which could not be explained by threshold effects. The greater amount of time spent on housework by migrant women than by native-born women will in general lead to a larger wage decrease due to housework for migrant women than for native-born women. The results further showed that the observed variables explained very little of the migrants’ gender wage gap, in contrast to the gap of native-born individuals. Human capital returns, including education and work experiences, were much lower for migrant women than for native-born women, whereas differences in housework equally contributed to the explained share of the gap for both groups, indicating the greater relevance of housework for migrants’ wage gap.

     

Motherhood and Earnings: Wage Variability by Major Occupational Category and Earnings Level

Prior research has indicated that women with children earn less than their childless counterparts. In addition, recent research has found that the motherhood wage penalty may be most severe for low-income earners. Using panel data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (1979), we test two hypotheses. First, are there occupational differences in the motherhood wage penalty? Second, are there occupational differences in the relative wage penalty experienced by low and high wage mothers? Our results indicated that mothers in sales occupations are penalized at a significantly higher rate than mothers in non-sales occupations, while mothers in blue-collar occupations were penalized the least. Furthermore, the wage cost of motherhood was greatest amongst the highest earners in sales occupations.     

MALE-FEMALE DIFFERENCES IN OCCUPATIONAL CHOICE AND THE DEMAND FOR GENERAL AND OCCUPATION-SPECIFIC HUMAN CAPITAL

A human capital model of occupational choice as demand for general and occupation-specific human capital is developed to show how women's occupational choices vary with their lifetime labor force participation patterns. The model is tested using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Mature Women. The major empirical finding is that women who take less home time choose occupations which require more human capital, especially specific human capital. Women's occupations and wages are quite responsive to changes in their labor force participation patterns. If women worked continuously, their occupations and wages would be much closer to those of men.     

Free versus regulated migration: Comparing the wages of the New Zealand-born,other migrants and the Australia-born workers in Australia

New Zealanders can cross borders freely, work and live in Australia indefinitely thanks to the Trans-Tasman Travel Agreement. This paper uses a recently developed decomposition method to decompose the weekly wage gap at various quantiles on the wage distribution between New Zealand-born (NZ-born) and Australian-born workers, and between NZ-born workers, migrants from other English speaking countries (OESC), and from non-English speaking countries (NESC) to determine how free and regulated migration influences migrants’ performance in the Australian labour market. We found that NZ-born workers earned higher weekly wages than both Australian-born and NESC workers but earned lower wages than OESC migrants. Differences in endowment were primarily responsible for the wage gaps between NZ-born and Australian-born workers and between NZ-born and OESC migrants. However, differences in returns to worker and job characteristics are mainly responsible for the wage gap between NZ-born and NESC migrants.     

Sociodemographic Determinants of Occupational Risks of Exposure to COVID‐19 in Canada

The activities performed by Canadian workers in some occupations may increase the risk of exposure to infectious diseases such as COVID‐19. This research note explores how occupational exposure risks vary by labor force characteristics using publicly available Canadian data in combination with a data set providing information on the level of physical proximity and frequency of exposure to infections or diseases faced by workers in different occupations. The results show important sociodemographic differences. First, women work in occupations associated with significantly higher average risks of exposure to COVID‐19 than men. This is driven by their overrepresentation in high‐risk broad occupational categories such as health occupations. Second, older workers (65 years or more), a group vulnerable to COVID‐19, appear to work in occupations requiring performing activities characterized by a lower level of physical proximity than their younger colleagues, with minimal differences in the frequency of exposure to diseases or infections. Finally, workers in low‐income occupations are employed in occupations that put them at greater risk of exposure to COVID‐19 than other workers. This is especially the case for women, immigrants, and members of visible minority groups in low‐income occupations. More broadly, this research note provides insights into the health‐related dimension of the literature on occupational tasks and labor market stratification.     

Arbeitsmarktsegregation und Einkommen

What mechanisms link horizontal labour market segregation and the gender gap in wages? One explanation is based on the cultural devaluation of typically ‘female’ skills and work contents which are held responsible for lower earnings in these occupations. In the present study the idea of devaluation of ‘female’ work is contrasted with other possible explanations such as occupational differences in specialized human capital requirements or unpleasant work conditions. Based on a large sample of employed persons in Germany (IAB-Beschaeftigtenstichprobe 1975–1995) and on a survey on work conditions (BIBB/IAB-Erhebung 1991/92), the influence of ‘female’ work contents and other occupational variables on individual earnings is modeled for East and West Germany separately. The results of multilevel analyses accounting for the embeddedness of individuals in occupations and industries show that some ‘female’ work contents — typing, cleaning and selling — decrease income, and thus are culturally devalued. In contrast, occupational differences in specialized human capital requirements and work conditions do seemingly not affect individual wages. In East Germany the results in regard of devaluation are less pronounced. In both parts of the country there is an unabatedly strong effect of individual sex on earnings which cannot be explained by the introduced occupational characteristics.     

Immigrant Occupational Composition and the Earnings of Immigrants and Natives in Germany: Sorting or Devaluation?

In this article, the influence of immigrant occupational composition on the earnings of immigrants and natives in Germany is examined. Using data from the German Socio‐Economic Panel Study and the German Microcensus, several relevant concepts are tested. The notion of quality sorting states that the differences in wages that are associated with the immigrant share within occupations are due only to differences in qualification requirements. Cultural devaluation assumes a negative influence over and above that of quality sorting. The findings indicate that both processes are at work. Additional analyses reveal that the impact of immigrant occupational composition is largely restricted to white‐collar occupations, which underlines the importance of considering historical differences between occupation types in classic migration destinations such as Germany.     

Occupational Sex Composition and Marriage: The Romantic Cost of Gender-Atypical Jobs

The author considers the mechanisms by which occupational sex composition (the proportion of women and men in an occupation) might be associated with romantic transitions in the United States. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 to 2014, the author estimates the odds of marriage during a period of 35 years as a function of occupational and personal characteristics. Men's odds of marriage are decreased by working in predominately female occupations (75%–100% female) when compared with working in predominately male occupations (0%–25% female) or integrated (26%–74% female) occupations. Also, working in a predominately female occupation increases the odds that men have never married by ages 30 and 40. Women's odds of marriage are unrelated to occupational sex composition. Although the author focuses on marriage, the results are robust to including cohabitation as a competing risk. The author uses data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health 1994 to 2008 to replicate these findings in a more recent cohort with additional control variables. The romantic penalty for men's occupational gender atypicality demonstrates the continued devaluation of female activities and attributes and the resulting rigidity of expectations for men's gendered behavior, which may reinforce occupational segregation.     

Der Einfluss der beruflichen Geschlechtersegregation auf den „Gender Pay Gap“

Occupational sex segregation is generally seen as an important determinant for the gender specific wage differential (“gender pay gap”). Therefore, the present study examines factors explaining wage penalties in typical women’s occupations in Germany. Dealing with sociological and social psychological status theories it is assumed that women’s occupations are paid less because of typical feminine work content that is devalued on the labor market—whereas typical masculine work content dominating in men’s occupations is monetary highly valued. Hypotheses are tested with data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP) 2000–2010 applying linear fixed effects models. Occupational characteristics, like gendered work content, are merged from the BIBB/BAuA-Erwerbstätigenbefragung (Employment Survey) 2005/2006 and the Microcensus to the SOEP. The analysis reveals the mediating effect of gendered work content on wage penalties in gross hourly wages for employees in women’s occupations—but only for men. This gender specific effect is explained with different expectations for competence and effort concerning gendered work content with which women and men are confronted. Lower norms for overwork in women’s occupations partly explain wage penalties in those occupations especially for women. Finally, an Oaxaca/Blinder decomposition shows that gendered work content explains the “gender pay gap” significantly.