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Despite well-documented convergence during the later years of the 20 th century, labor market attachment remains markedly higher for men than for women. The current paper employs rich longitudinal registry data to investigate the intergenerational transfer of the gender gap in employment. We explore the extent that family-and community-level characteristics, measured in childhood, differentially predict employment for adult Norwegian men and women. Drawing on theories pertaining to the importance of information, skills and gender norms transfer, our empirical analysis demonstrates that a parsimonious set of family-and community-level characteristics can explain a substantial part of the gender gap. These results suggest that female employment continues to be influenced by the intergenerational transfer of beliefs and expectations about family and work.

Utilizing registry data from cognitive ability tests for all Norwegian males born between 1962 and 1973, I study whether labor-market conditions at the age of graduation have differential effects on earnings and employment for different ability groups. I find that low-ability males are more vulnerable to local business cycles at the expected time of labor-market entry. In particular, I demonstrate that low-ability males suffer larger long-term earnings losses than the rest of the population.

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