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High School Experiences, the Gender Wage Gap, and the Selection of Occupation

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  • Douglas Webber
  • Michael Strain

Abstract

This paper finds that high-school leadership experiences explain a significant portion of the residual gender wage gap and selection into management occupations. The results imply that high-school leadership could build non-cognitive, productive skills that are rewarded years later in the labor market and that explain a portion of the systematic difference in pay between men and women. Alternatively, high-school leadership could be a proxy variable for personality characteristics that differ between men and women and that drive higher pay and becoming a manager. Because high school leadership experiences are exogenous to direct labor market experiences, the results leave less room for direct labor market discrimination as a driver of the gender wage gap and occupation selection.

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  • Douglas Webber & Michael Strain, 2015. "High School Experiences, the Gender Wage Gap, and the Selection of Occupation," Working Papers id:7316, eSocialSciences.
    • Handle: RePEc:ess:wpaper:id:7316
    Note: Institutional Papers
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    Cited by:

    1. Moeeni, Safoura & Wei, Feng, 2022. "The labor market returns to unobserved skills: Evidence from a gender quota," CLEF Working Paper Series 53, Canadian Labour Economics Forum (CLEF), University of Waterloo.
    2. Claudia Roethlisberger & Franziska Gassmann & Wim Groot & Bruno Martorano, 2023. "The contribution of personality traits and social norms to the gender pay gap: A systematic literature review," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(2), pages 377-408, April.
    3. Roshini Brizmohun & Diana Alessandrini & Valentina Hartarska, 2021. "Gender wage gap in small islands: Effect of a policy framework in Mauritius," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(4), pages 2207-2229, November.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    gender wage gap; non-cognitive skills; occupational choice; women; men; gender discrimination; remuneration;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials

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