IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eme/ijmpps/v31y2010i8p888-907.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Offshoring of white‐collar jobs in the United States and gendered outcomes

Author

Listed:
  • Ebru Kongar
  • Mark Price

Abstract

Purpose - Since the mid‐1990s, offshore production has become increasingly important in white‐collar, service sector activities in the US economy. This development coincided with a stagnant gender wage gap in the service sector and a slowdown in the narrowing of the overall US gender wage gap over this period. This paper aims to categorize white‐collar service sector occupations into two groups based on whether an occupation is at risk of being offshored and to assess the relative contribution of these two groupings, through their employment and wages, to the trends in the gender wage gap within the service sector and the US economy between 1995 and 2005. Design/methodology/approach - Standard occupational decomposition methods are applied to Current Population Survey and Displaced Workers Survey data. Findings - The findings show that in occupations at risk of being offshored, low‐wage women's employment declined, leading to an artificial increase in the average wage of the remaining women thereby narrowing the gender wage gap. This improvement in the gender wage gap was offset by the relative growth of high‐wage male employment in at‐risk occupations and the widening of the gender wage gap within not‐at‐risk occupations. Originality/value - These findings contribute to the growing literature on the causes of the stagnation of the US gender wage gap in the 1990s.

Suggested Citation

  • Ebru Kongar & Mark Price, 2010. "Offshoring of white‐collar jobs in the United States and gendered outcomes," International Journal of Manpower, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 31(8), pages 888-907, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:eme:ijmpps:v:31:y:2010:i:8:p:888-907
    DOI: 10.1108/01437721011088566
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/01437721011088566/full/html?utm_source=repec&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=repec
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers
    File URL: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/01437721011088566/full/pdf?utm_source=repec&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=repec
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1108/01437721011088566?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Marvin H. Kosters, 1991. "Workers and Their Wages: Changing Patterns in the United States," Books, American Enterprise Institute, number 52907, September.
    2. Gunseli Berik, 2000. "Mature Export-Led Growth and Gender Wage Inequality in Taiwan," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 6(3), pages 1-26.
    3. Kucera, David & Milberg, William, 2000. "Gender Segregation and Gender Bias in Manufacturing Trade Expansion: Revisiting the "Wood Asymmetry"," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 28(7), pages 1191-1210, July.
    4. Jagdish Bhagwati & Arvind Panagariya, 2004. "The Muddles over Outsourcing," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 18(4), pages 93-114, Fall.
    5. Joseph E. Zveglich Jr. & Yana van der Meulen Rodgers, 2004. "Occupational Segregation and the Gender Wage Gap in a Dynamic East Asian Economy," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 70(4), pages 850-875, April.
    6. Bardhan, Ashok Deo & Kroll, Cynthia, 2003. "The New Wave of Outsourcing," Fisher Center for Real Estate & Urban Economics, Research Reports qt02f8z392, Fisher Center for Real Estate & Urban Economics, UC Berkeley.
    7. Lori G. Kletzer, 2001. "Job Loss from Imports: Measuring the Costs," Peterson Institute Press: All Books, Peterson Institute for International Economics, number 110, April.
    8. Runjuan Liu & Daniel Trefler, 2008. "Much Ado About Nothing: American Jobs and the Rise of Service Outsourcing to China and India," NBER Working Papers 14061, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Iammarino, Simona & Rodríguez-Pose, Andrés & Gagliardi, Luisa, 2015. "Offshoring and the Geography of Jobs in Great Britain," CEPR Discussion Papers 10855, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ebru Kongar & Mark Price, 2007. "Is White the New Blue? The Impact on Gender Wage and Employment Differentials of Offshoring of White-collar Jobs in the United States," Working Paper Series, Department of Economics, University of Utah 2007_08, University of Utah, Department of Economics.
    2. Rosario Crinò, 2009. "Offshoring, Multinationals And Labour Market: A Review Of The Empirical Literature," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(2), pages 197-249, April.
    3. Rosario Crinò, 2010. "Service Offshoring and White-Collar Employment," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 77(2), pages 595-632.
    4. J. Bradford Jensen & Lori G. Kletzer, 2005. "Tradable Services: Understanding the Scope and Impact of Services Outsourcing," Working Paper Series WP05-9, Peterson Institute for International Economics.
    5. Tobias Brändle, 2015. "Is offshoring linked to offshoring potential? Evidence from German linked employer–employee data," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 151(4), pages 735-766, November.
    6. Lurweg, Maren, 2010. "Perceived job insecurity, unemployment risk and international trade: A micro-level analysis of employees in German service industries," CAWM Discussion Papers 32, University of Münster, Münster Center for Economic Policy (MEP).
    7. Joseph Francois & Bernard Hoekman, 2010. "Services Trade and Policy," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 48(3), pages 642-692, September.
    8. J. Bradford Jensen & Lori G. Kletzer, 2010. "Measuring Tradable Services and the Task Content of Offshorable Services Jobs," NBER Chapters, in: Labor in the New Economy, pages 309-335, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Günseli Berik & Yana Meulen Rodgers & Joseph E. Zveglich, 2004. "Does Trade Promote Gender Wage Equity? Evidence from East Asia," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: William Milberg (ed.), Labor and the Globalization of Production, chapter 7, pages 146-178, Palgrave Macmillan.
    10. Thorin, Maria, 2003. "The gender dimension of economic globalization: an annotated bibliography," Manuales 5593, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL).
    11. Jacques Poot & Anna Strutt, 2010. "International Trade Agreements and International Migration," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(12), pages 1923-1954, December.
    12. Mitra, Devashish & Ranjan, Priya, 2007. "Offshoring and Unemployment," IZA Discussion Papers 2805, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    13. Rafael Gomez & Morley Gunderson & René Morissette, 2013. "Labour Adjustment Implications of Service Offshoring: Evidence from Canada," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 51(1), pages 148-173, March.
    14. Gregory Mankiw, N. & Swagel, Phillip, 2006. "The politics and economics of offshore outsourcing," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(5), pages 1027-1056, July.
    15. Ramya Vijaya, 2007. "Trade, Job Losses and Gender: A Policy Perspective," Forum for Social Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(2), pages 73-85, January.
    16. van Staveren, I.P., 2002. "Towards monitoring mutual trade-gender links," ISS Working Papers - General Series 19102, International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam (ISS), The Hague.
    17. Liu, Runjuan & Trefler, Daniel, 2019. "A sorted tale of globalization: White collar jobs and the rise of service offshoring," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 105-122.
    18. Lori G. Kletzer, 2005. "Globalization and job loss, from manufacturing to services," Economic Perspectives, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, vol. 29(Q II), pages 38-46.
    19. Thomas Kemeny & David Rigby & Abigail Cooke, 2015. "Cheap Imports and the Loss of US Manufacturing Jobs," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(10), pages 1555-1573, October.
    20. Ramya Vijaya, 2007. "Trade, Job Losses and Gender: A Policy Perspective," Forum for Social Economics, Springer;The Association for Social Economics, vol. 36(2), pages 73-85, October.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eme:ijmpps:v:31:y:2010:i:8:p:888-907. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Emerald Support (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.