Occupational Skills and the Gender Gap in Individual Annual Wage Income: Similarities and differences between Japan and the United States in the mechanisms of mediation (Japanese)

Based on survey data from 2000 to 2018 from the U.S. General Social Survey (GSS) and the Japanese General Social Survey (JGSS), this paper first compares Japan and the United States in the determinants of occupational attainment with two types of skills "science and technology skills" and "interpersonal service skills," for employed persons aged 25-64. Next, by limiting the population to employees who worked 20 or more hours a week throughout the year, this paper compares Japan and the United States, generating the gender gap in the annual wage income by decomposing the gap into factors that are mediated by various intervening factors. These results are compared between Japan and the United States to clarify Japan's unique problems in eliminating the gender wage-income gap. The Neumark method, which is an extension of the Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition analysis method, is used to analyze the decomposition of the gender gap in occupational attainment and the annual wage income. The mediating factors of the gender gap in the annual wage income are ①educational attainment, ② age, ③ hours of work, ④ employment status, ⑤ whether or not the person is in a managerial or administrative position, ⑤ occupational science and technology skills, and ④ occupational interpersonal service skills. The results highlighted that the reasons why the gender gap in wage income in Japan is larger than that in the United States are (1) how working hours and employment status affect annual wage income in Japan is strongly influenced by the characteristics of the Japanese employment system, which emphasizes long-term and long-hour employment, which introduces a considerable handicap for women, and (2) the fact that Japan is far behind in terms of attaining gender equality in educational attainment and in the attainment of managerial and administrative positions, compared to the situation in the United States, where women are already equal to or outperform men. In addition, there are differences between Japan and the United States in the way that two types of occupational skills affect the gender gap in annual wage income, and these differences are also clarified.