Occupational Stereotypes and Gender‐Specific Job Satisfaction

Using representative data containing information on job satisfaction and workers’ gender‐specific prejudices, we investigate the relationship between stereotyping and job satisfaction. We show that women in stereotypically male jobs are significantly less satisfied with their work climate and job content than in stereotypically female jobs but more satisfied with their income in those same jobs. Our findings indicate that women trade off their higher income satisfaction against the negative consequences of stereotyping. As long as we take into account that stereotypically male jobs are physically more demanding than stereotypically female jobs, men are generally more satisfied with stereotypically male jobs.     

Gender Sorting at the Application Interface

We document gender sorting of candidates into gender‐typed jobs at the point of initial application to a company. At this step of the hiring process, the firm has implemented a policy whereby organizational screeners’ discretion has been eliminated such that there is no opportunity for contact between hiring agents and applicants. Thus, the job choices studied here offer unique insight as they are uncontaminated by screeners’ steering of candidates toward gender‐typed jobs. Even in the absence of steering, we find clear patterns of gendered job choices that line up with gender stereotypes of job roles. Moreover, these gendered patterns recur both within individuals and within race groups. Comparing our findings to the pattern of job sorting in the external local labor market, we find that supply‐side factors do not fully account for the levels job sex segregation observed in the open labor market. Although probably not the entire story, we show clear evidence that supply‐side sorting processes are important factors contributing to job sex segregation.     

Transitions Out of Casual Employment: The Australian Experience

This paper uses longitudinal data to examine the extent to which casual employees, who account for almost 25 percent of all Australian employees, are able to access non‐casual jobs in the future, and to contrast their experiences with that of other labor market participants. A dynamic mixed multinomial logit model of labor market states is estimated which reveals high rates of mobility from casual employment into non‐casual employment. Among men, casual employees are found to be far more likely to make the transition into non‐casual employment than otherwise comparable unemployed job seekers. For women, however, this is not the case.     

The Structure of the Wage Gap for Temporary Workers: Evidence from Australian Panel Data

This study uses panel data for Australia to estimate the wage differential between workers in temporary jobs and workers in permanent jobs. It is the first study to use unconditional quantile regression methods in combination with fixed effects to examine how this gap varies over the entire wage distribution. While the wages of fixed‐term contract workers are found to be similar to those of permanent workers, low‐paid casual workers experience a wage penalty and high‐paid casual workers a wage premium compared to their permanent counterparts. Temporary agency workers also usually receive a wage premium, which is particularly large for the most well paid.     

Organizational‐Level Gender Dissimilarity and Employee Commitment

This study explores the extent to which gender dissimilarity in the workplace affects employees' commitment to their organization, using data from the British (1998) Workplace Employee Relations Survey. The results showed that the effects of organizational‐level gender dissimilarity on organizational commitment were more complex than has commonly been assumed in the literature. The relationship between organizational‐level gender dissimilarity and employee commitment was U‐shaped for women whereas it was not significant for men. The relationship was moderated by the respondents' status as measured by their level of pay. For men, the relationship between gender dissimilarity and commitment was negative for high‐paid individuals but not for low‐paid ones, while for women the U‐shaped relationship was weaker for high‐paid individuals than for low‐paid individuals.     

Affirmative Action and the Occupational Advancement of Minorities and Women During 1973–2003

The share of minorities and women comprising high‐paying skilled occupations such as management, professional, and technical occupations has been increasing since the 1960s, while the proportion of white men in such occupations has been declining. What has been the contribution of affirmative action to the occupational advancement of minorities and women from low‐wage unskilled occupations into high‐wage skilled ones in U.S. firms? I examine this by comparing the occupational position of minorities and women at firms holding federal contracts, and thereby mandated to implement affirmative action, and noncontracting firms, over the course of 31 years during 1973–2003. I use a new longitudinal dataset of over 100,000 large private‐sector firms across all industries and regions uniquely suited for the exploration of this question obtained from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. My key findings show that the share of minorities and women in high‐paying skilled occupations grew more at federal contractors subject to affirmative action obligation than at noncontracting firms during the three decades under study, but these advances took place primarily during the pre‐ and early Reagan years and during the decade following the Glass Ceiling Act of 1991.     

Firm‐Size Wage Gaps along the Formal‐Informal Divide: Theory and Evidence

Observationally equivalent workers are paid higher wages in larger firms. This fact is often called the “firm‐size wage gap” and is regarded as a key empirical puzzle. Using microlevel data from Turkey, we document a new stylized fact: The firm‐size wage gap is more pronounced for informal (unregistered) jobs than for formal (registered) jobs. To explain this fact, we develop a two‐stage wage‐posting game with market imperfections and segmented markets, the solution to which produces wages as a function of firm size in a well‐defined subgame‐perfect equilibrium. The model proposes two explanations. First, taxes on formal employment generate a wedge between formal and informal size wage gaps. Thus, government policy can potentially affect the magnitude of the firm‐size wage gaps. The second explanation features a market‐based framework with strategic interactions. Relative to small firms, large firms typically post higher wages for both formal and informal jobs. A high‐wage formal job attracts a larger pool of applicants than a high‐wage informal job. The larger pool of applicants for the formal job, in turn, allows the firm to somewhat lower the initial wage offer, while this second‐round effect is negligible for informal jobs. As a result, size differentials are lower in formal jobs than informal jobs. We argue that the observed patterns in the use of social connections in job search and heterogeneity in job preferences can be used to justify the validity of this second mechanism.     

A Theory of Dual Job Search and Sex‐Based Occupational Clustering

This paper theorizes and provides evidence for the segregation of men into clustered occupations and women into dispersed occupations in advance of marriage and in anticipation of future colocation problems. Using the Decennial Census, and controlling for occupational characteristics, I find evidence of this general pattern of segregation, and also find that the minority of the highly educated men and women who depart from this equilibrium experience delayed marriage, higher divorce, and lower earnings. Results are consistent with the theory that marriage and mobility expectations foment a self‐fulfilling pattern of occupational segregation with individual departures deterred by earnings and marriage penalties.     

The Greek Public Sector Wage Premium before the Crisis: Size,Selection and Relative Valuation of Characteristics

We examine the Greek public–private wage differential before the debt crisis to evaluate the prospective impact of the recent public sector pay cuts. We find a large public premium which persists after controlling for individual and job characteristics. For men, much of this is accounted for by self‐selection into the sector that rewards better their characteristics, while for women it is largely driven by sectoral differences in returns. We attribute these effects to more egalitarian pay structures in the public sector and to demand problems in the private sector. The recent policy measures only partially change this situation, as wage deflation extends to the private sector, preserving public premia for the low paid.     

Job Gendering: Occupational Choice and the Marriage Market

Existing theories of occupational segregation appeal to family-related responsibilities, employer discrimination, and socialization to explain why women and men occupy such different jobs. We suggest that occupational segregation is perpetuated because women (and men) may be penalized in the marriage market for making nontraditional occupational choices. As an empirical test, we asked students to rate personal ad-like vignettes. Holding all else equal, having a gender-nonconforming occupation reduced the attractiveness of both men and women.     

Computer Use,Job Tasks and the Part‐Time Pay Penalty

Using data from the UK Skills Surveys 1997–2012, we show that the part‐time pay penalty (PTPP) for women within low‐ and medium‐skilled occupations has decreased significantly. The convergence in computer use and non‐routine job tasks between part‐time and full‐time workers explains a large share of the decrease in the PTPP. This convergence took place mainly within occupations, and was not driven by changes in occupational segregation between the two groups of workers. The lower PTPP is also related to changes in the returns to job tasks. Relative changes in the importance of and returns to computer use and job tasks together explain more than 50 per cent of the decrease in the PTPP.     

Employers' Search and the Efficiency of Matching

Unskilled workers in low productivity jobs typically experience higher labour turnover. This article shows how this finding is related to variation in the efficiency of the matching process across occupations. If employers find it less profitable to invest in search and screening activities when recruiting for low‐productivity jobs, matches at the lower end of the occupation distribution will be more prone to separation. The analysis of a unique sample of British hirings, containing detailed information about employers' recruitment practices, shows that more intensive recruitment leads to matches of better quality that pay higher wages, last longer and make employers more satisfied with the person taken on.     

Non‐Standard “Contingent” Employment and Job Satisfaction: A Panel Data Analysis

Contingent forms of employment are usually associated with low‐quality jobs and, by inference, jobs that workers find relatively unsatisfying. This assumption is tested using data from a representative household panel survey covering a country (Australia) with a high incidence of nonstandard employment. Results from the estimation of ordered logit regression models reveal that among males, both casual employees and labor‐hire (agency) workers (but not fixed‐term contract workers) report noticeably lower levels of job satisfaction, though this association diminishes with job tenure. Negative effects for women are mainly restricted to labor‐hire workers.     

Major Matters: A Comparison of the Within‐Major Gender Pay Gap across College Majors for Early‐Career Graduates

I use data from the 1993 National Survey of College Graduates and appended 1990 Census on about 11,000 men and women college graduates (8400 with bachelor's degrees only, and 2800 with graduate degrees) who earned degrees in a 5‐year period (1984–1988), to address questions regarding the link between college major and early‐career gender pay differentials. I look at within‐major gender pay differentials for two groups of college graduates: those whose highest degrees are bachelor's and those who hold graduate degrees. Among those whose highest degrees are bachelor's, I find that within‐major gender pay penalties are virtually zero for professional majors. Gender pay penalties are large for general studies majors: social sciences, history, and humanities, and business administration (except accounting). For these, jobs account for a large portion of the unexplained gap. Among individuals who hold graduate degrees, I find that within‐major gender pay penalties are zero for all fields. My findings suggest that pay penalties to women in the aggregate can be traced to relatively large penalties in a couple of key fields (bachelor's degree–level general studies fields): social sciences and humanities, and business administration (except accounting). These findings are important, as they contradict the prevailing view. Existing empirical research suggests that women are uniformly disadvantaged compared to men regardless of field of study and, thus, field of study explains little or none of the gender gap in pay. I conclude that supply‐side mechanisms are important factors in producing gender inequality among college graduates, and suggest that we further focus our attention on the “supply side” in understanding segregation and gender pay inequality.     

Gender and Piece Rates, Commissions, and Bonuses

Previous work shows that establishments with higher proportions of women are more likely to use piece rates but that individual women are less likely to receive performance pay. We present a model in which lower expected tenure and labor force attachment are positively associated with piece rates but are negatively associated with other forms of performance pay. Analysis of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) confirms that women are more likely to be paid piece rates and simultaneously less likely to be paid commissions and bonuses.     

The Financial Costs of Caring in the British Labour Market: Is There a Wage Penalty for Workers in Caring Occupations?

Recent evidence from the USA suggests that people engaged in occupations involving providing care for others, such as childcare and teaching, suffer a wage penalty. After taking into account job and individual characteristics such as level of education and work experience, people in these occupations in the American study earned about 6 per cent less than their peers in other types of occupation. However, we do not yet know if people working in similar occupations in other countries also suffer the same degree of disadvantage. The issue is important because, despite the perception that people in caring jobs place a relatively low weight on the level of remuneration when making career decisions, a number of studies have shown clear evidence of an association between pay and the propensity to give up working in a caring occupation. There are implications too for social inequality as many caring jobs are done by women and associated wage penalties could contribute to the persistent gender gap in pay. This study compares and contrasts the predictions of neoclassical economics, cultural feminist theory and social closure theory. Data are taken from 17 waves of the British Household Panel Survey and include a total of 23,773 individuals, giving 110,677 person‐year observations. These data are analysed using multi‐level linear regression. The results show clear evidence of a statistically significant wage penalty associated with working in some caring occupations. Those occupations requiring lower levels of educational qualification, such as nursing assistants and auxiliaries, are particularly hard‐hit by the wage penalty. On the other hand, some occupations, such as medicine and teaching, have fared better than comparable non‐caring occupations over the same period. We discuss the implications of these results for the gender gap in pay, poverty, social inequality and the future supply of caring workers.     

Estimating the Use of Agency Workers: Can Family‐Friendly Practices Reduce Their Use?

This paper uses establishment data to estimate the determinants of using agency workers. It contends that there is a class of family‐friendly practices including workplace nurseries, flexitime, home working, and job sharing that promote the norm of the “ideal worker” who concentrates on work. Because such practices increase the ability of employers to direct worker effort, they will be associated with a lower use of agency workers. Our findings confirm this hypothesis. The implication is that any growth in family‐friendly practices may work against the ongoing expansion in agency jobs.     

Sexual Orientation,Income, and Stress at Work

I present a model explaining recent findings that partnered gay men earn less than partnered straight men while partnered lesbian women earn more than partnered straight women. In an environment with compensating differentials and a gender gap in potential income, an income effect leads partnered gay men to choose jobs with lower income and higher amenities than partnered straight men. The same mechanism generates similarly reasoned predictions about income and amenities for women and single people. Canadian data on stressfulness of one's working environment support these predictions.     

Permanent Jobs,Employment Protection,and Job Content

Using Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) data for twenty‐one countries, I study the impact of employment protection laws (EPL) on job content. I find that workers’ use of influence, reading, writing, planning, numeracy and information and computer technology skills, and their task discretion, were higher in permanent than in temporary jobs. Moreover, stricter EPL on permanent jobs raised the gap in job content for influence, reading, writing, and planning skills used in permanent jobs versus temporary jobs.     

The Relationship between Delegation and Incentives Across Occupations: Evidence and Theory

A large literature suggests that incentive pay and delegation of worker authority are positively related. Using data from a large cross section of British establishments, we show that the positive relationship found in the empirical literature masks a stark difference across jobs. Classifying jobs into two categories (complex jobs, including professional, technical and scientific occupations, and simple jobs, consisting of all other non‐managerial occupations) we find a positive relationship for simple jobs and a negative relationship for complex jobs. To explain this negative relationship, we develop a model where stronger incentives distort a worker's decisions towards low risk‐return tasks.