IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/woemps/v30y2016i5p802-820.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Why do occupations dominated by women pay less? How ‘female-typical’ work tasks and working-time arrangements affect the gender wage gap among higher education graduates

Author

Listed:
  • Kathrin Leuze

    (Leibniz Universität Hannover, Germany)

  • Susanne Strauß

    (University of Konstanz, Germany)

Abstract

Even though women today constitute the majority of higher education graduates, they still earn considerably less than their male counterparts. Previous research demonstrates that occupational sex segregation is important for understanding the gender wage gap, since occupations dominated by women pay less; yet less is known about why this is the case. This article explores two possible mechanisms: the devaluation of ‘female-typical’ work tasks and working-time arrangements. Hypotheses are tested by applying OLS regression and Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition analyses to the log hourly wages of a representative sample of German higher education graduates from 2001. Results confirm that occupational overtime increases and occupational part-time work decreases wages, indicating that occupations dominated by women pay less due to their ‘female-typical’ working-time arrangements. However, inconsistent with the devaluation thesis, tasks like teaching/educating increase wages for women, too, which speaks against a general lower value of ‘female-typical’ tasks, at least among the highly qualified.

Suggested Citation

  • Kathrin Leuze & Susanne Strauß, 2016. "Why do occupations dominated by women pay less? How ‘female-typical’ work tasks and working-time arrangements affect the gender wage gap among higher education graduates," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 30(5), pages 802-820, October.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:woemps:v:30:y:2016:i:5:p:802-820
    DOI: 10.1177/0950017015624402
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0950017015624402
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0950017015624402?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Wolf, Elke, 2002. "Lower wage rates for fewer hours? A simultaneous wage-hours model for Germany," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(5), pages 643-663, November.
    2. Gary S. Becker, 1962. "Investment in Human Capital: A Theoretical Analysis," NBER Chapters, in: Investment in Human Beings, pages 9-49, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Markus Gangl & Andrea Ziefle, 2009. "Motherhood, labor force behavior, and women’s careers: An empirical assessment of the wage penalty for motherhood in britain, germany, and the united states," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 46(2), pages 341-369, May.
    4. Ben Jann, 2008. "The Blinder–Oaxaca decomposition for linear regression models," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 8(4), pages 453-479, December.
    5. Becker, Gary S, 1985. "Human Capital, Effort, and the Sexual Division of Labor," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 3(1), pages 33-58, January.
    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. Kennedy, Tom & Rae, Maria & Sheridan, Alison & Valadkhani, Abbas, 2017. "Reducing gender wage inequality increases economic prosperity for all: Insights from Australia," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 14-24.
    2. Ann-Christin Bächmann & Dörthe Gatermann, 2017. "The duration of family-related employment interruptions – the role of occupational characteristics [Die Bedeutung des Berufs für die Dauer von Erwerbsunterbrechungen nach der Geburt des ersten Kind," Journal for Labour Market Research, Springer;Institute for Employment Research/ Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), vol. 50(1), pages 143-160, August.

    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. Combet, Benita & Oesch, Daniel, 2019. "The Gender Wage Gap Opens Long before Motherhood. Panel Evidence on Early Careers in Switzerland," SocArXiv sazxj, Center for Open Science.
    2. Maria Kravtsova & Aleksey Oshchepkov, 2019. "Market And Network Corruption," HSE Working papers WP BRP 209/EC/2019, National Research University Higher School of Economics.
    3. Stenberg, Anders & Westerlund, Olle, 2016. "Flexibility at a cost – Should governments stimulate tertiary education for adults?," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 7(C), pages 69-86.
    4. Christina Boll & Malte Jahn & Andreas Lagemann, 2017. "The gender lifetime earnings gap—exploring gendered pay from the life course perspective," Journal of Income Distribution, Ad libros publications inc., vol. 25(1), pages 1-53, March.
    5. Ewa Cukrowska-Torzewska, 2015. "She Cares and He Earns? The Family Gap in Poland," Ekonomia journal, Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw, vol. 42.
    6. Anki Yambare & Gabin Ibemba, 2015. "Discrimination Against Women On The Labor Market In Congo Brazzaville [Discrimination A L'Egard Des Femmes Sur Le Marche Du Travail En Milieu Urbain Congolais]," Working Papers hal-01675923, HAL.
    7. Jakob, Martina & Combet, Benita, 2020. "Educational aspirations and decision-making in a context of poverty. A test of rational choice models in El Salvador," SocArXiv w9bkq, Center for Open Science.
    8. Robert M. Sauer & Christopher Taber, 2021. "Understanding women's wage growth using indirect inference with importance sampling," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 36(4), pages 453-473, June.
    9. Karen Mumford & Cristina Sechel, 2017. "Pay, Rank and Job Satisfaction amongst Academic Economists in the UK," Discussion Papers 17/17, Department of Economics, University of York.
    10. Karen Mumford & Cristina Sechel, 2020. "Pay and Job Rank among Academic Economists in the UK: Is Gender Relevant?," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 58(1), pages 82-113, March.
    11. Koomen, Miriam & Backes-Gellner, Uschi, 2022. "Occupational tasks and wage inequality in West Germany: A decomposition analysis," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    12. Laura C. Blanco, 2022. "Diferenciales salariales de género y sus determinantes para el personal académico en propiedad en la Universidad de Costa Rica. (Gender wage differentials and its determinants for tenured academics at," Working Papers 202204, Universidad de Costa Rica, revised May 2022.
    13. Rick Glaubitz & Astrid Harnack-Eber & Miriam Wetter, 2022. "The Gender Gap in Lifetime Earnings: The Role of Parenthood," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 2001, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    14. Gafni Dalit & Siniver Erez, 2015. "Is There a Motherhood Wage Penalty for Highly Skilled Women?," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 15(3), pages 1353-1380, July.
    15. Rink, Ute & Walle, Yabibal M. & Klasen, Stephan, 2021. "The financial literacy gender gap and the role of culture," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 117-134.
    16. Victor Rudakov & Ilya Prakhov, 2019. "Gender Wage Inequality In Russian Universities," HSE Working papers WP BRP 208/EC/2019, National Research University Higher School of Economics.
    17. Akan Kadyrbekov & Dmitry Veselov, 2019. "Migration Of Russian Settlers And The Legacy Of Inter-Regional Development In Kazakhstan," HSE Working papers WP BRP 210/EC/2019, National Research University Higher School of Economics.
    18. Claudia Burgard, 2012. "Gender Differences in Further Training Participation – The Role of Individuals, Households and Firms," Ruhr Economic Papers 0320, Rheinisch-Westfälisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Universität Dortmund, Universität Duisburg-Essen.
    19. Hipp, Lena, 2018. "Do hiring practices penalize women and benefit men for having children? Experimental evidence from Germany," SocArXiv 4a68p, Center for Open Science.
    20. Tessa Conroy & Steven Deller & Alexandra Tsvetkova, 2017. "Interstate Relocation Of Manufacturers And Business Climate," Review of Urban & Regional Development Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(1), pages 18-45, March.

    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:sae:woemps:v:30:y:2016:i:5:p:802-820. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.britsoc.co.uk/ .

    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.