This study investigates the extent to which differences in average earnings between men and women may be the result of sorting by the sexes into jobs with different average levels of disagreeable and agreeable working conditions. An analysis of data from the 1977 Quality of Employment Survey shows that, on average, men and women hold jobs with substantially different working conditions and that these differences are of a pattern suggesting the need to pay higher wages to attract employees to the jobs held by men. Estimation of wage equations shows that these differences in working conditions contribute significantly to the ability to explain average earnings for each sex.ALTHOUGH economists have long known that women do not earn the same average wage as men, their attempts to explain this difference have been less than satisfactory, usually leaving unexplained a substantial component that may or may not be due to "discrimination."' This paper attacks 693-709. Subsequent studies are too numerous to list here. that problem by drawing on the approach used in studies of "compensating differentials" paid by employers to persuade workers to accept relatively less agreeable jobs. TheoryThe theory of compensating differentials is well developed.2 Wages are paid not 2For an excellent summary of the concept of compensating wage differentials and early studies of the subject, see Robert S. Smith, "Compensating

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