Does Rosie like riveting? Male and female occupational choices

Lordan, Grace and Pischke, Jorn-Steffen ORCID: 0000-0002-6466-1874 (2022) Does Rosie like riveting? Male and female occupational choices. Economica, 89 (353). 110 - 130. ISSN 0013-0427

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Abstract

Occupational segregation and pay gaps by gender remain large, while many of the constraints traditionally believed to be responsible for these gaps seem to have weakened over time. We explore the possibility that women and men have different tastes for the content of the work that they do. We relate job satisfaction and job mobility to measures that proxy for the content of the work in an occupation, which we label ‘people’, ‘brains’ and ‘brawn’. The results suggest that women value jobs high on ‘people’ content and low on ‘brawn’. Men care about job content in a similar fashion, but have much weaker preferences. High school students show similar preferences in a discrete choice experiment and indicate that they make their choices based mainly on preferences for the work itself. We argue that the more pronounced preferences of women can account for occupational sorting, which often leads them into careers with large pay penalties for interruptions due to childbearing.

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/14680335
Additional Information:	© 2021 The Authors
Divisions:	Psychological and Behavioural Science Economics
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HQ The family. Marriage. Woman H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor
Date Deposited:	14 Sep 2021 16:42
Last Modified:	17 Apr 2024 16:03
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/111928

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