Occupational Segregation and the Wage Gap Between Men and Women

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

The U.S. and many developed countries are facing rising economic inequality and declining mobility, with especially large inequality based on sex (Autor, Katz & Kearney, 2008; Chetty et al, 2020). This panel explores workers’ career experiences, including factors that drive differences between women and men in labor market outcomes, such as employment, occupation, and earnings. The first paper provides evidence on how an individual’s first job impacts their later-stage outcomes, and examines how wage growth varies within occupations for workers with different characteristics (e.g., sex and race). The second paper documents how non-pecuniary workplace preferences vary across gender and relate to choice of college major, occupation, and the early-career gender wage gap. The third paper develops a generalized occupational segregation index, estimates indexes on gender and educational attainment, and shows how occupational segregation compares across time and countries. The fourth paper provides an example from the education sector, investigating how the gender composition of superintendent hiring pools is related to the likelihood that a woman is hired. Together, these papers provide evidence on differences in labor market outcomes between women and men in a variety of contexts, including career stage, industry, and locality. They can help inform policy discussions around how to better support workers in the labor market and reduce inequities.

Policy Area

• Employment and Training Programs

Secondary Policy Area

• Education

Chair

• Daniel Sparks, University of Arkansas

Discussants

• Olga Stoddard, Yale University

• Veronica M. Minaya, Teachers College, Columbia University

Organizer

• Samantha Batel Kane, Brown University

Individual Presentations

• Workers’ First Jobs and Long-Term Wage Growth - Presenting Author: Isaac Mueller Opper, University of California - Los Angeles

• Unpacking the Black Box of Tastes: Altruism and the Gender Pay Gap - Presenting Author: Samantha Batel Kane, Brown University

• Generalized occupational segregation index: International comparisons over time - Presenting Author: Matthew Baird, LinkedIn

• Superintendent Gender and Finalist Searches - Presenting Author: Constance A. Lindsay, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill