Gender, Occupational Prestige, and Wages: A Test of Devaluation Theory

Magnusson, Charlotta

doi:10.1093/esr/jcn035

Cited by 90 publications

(99 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…Research indicates that-on average-men and women do not differ in their occupational status (Treiman & Terrell, 1975;Magnusson, 2009), which implies that either the mother or the father could be the higher-status parent. If the higher-status parent has a gender-stereotypical occupation, and adolescents enrol in a similar field, this will result in a more feminine or masculine field of study, respectively.…”

Section: Occupational Status Effectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Intergenerational transmission of gender segregation: How parents’ occupational field affects gender differences in field of study choices

Vleuten

Jaspers

Maas

et al. 2018

British Educational Res J

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The study explores how parents' occupational field affects gender differences in educational fields. On the one hand, the theory of direct transfer predicts that adolescents enter fields similar to those of their parents because of intergenerational transmission of occupation-specific resources and that adolescents are more likely to draw upon the resources provided by the higher-status parent. On the other hand, the theory of sex-role learning predicts that boys and girls are more likely to choose more gender-stereotypical fields of study because they learn 'appropriate' gender-role behaviour from their parents' occupational field and that boys are more likely to learn this behaviour from their father and girls from their mother. We use longitudinal data collected from adolescents and their parents in the Netherlands (N = 2,497) and tested our hypotheses using multiple-group structural equation modelling and multinomial regression analyses. In line with sex-role learning, results show that especially mothers who are employed in a more feminine occupational field influence their daughters to enter a more feminine field of study (health, biology, agriculture and veterinary) and their sons to enter a more masculine field of study (science and technology). Mothers' occupational field therefore not only influences girls' field of study, but also boys'. This study highlights the role of horizontal characteristics when examining which field of study adolescents enter. Contrary to the stratification literature, which primarily focuses on fathers, this study concludes that mothers play a more important role in gender differences in fields of study.Keywords: parents' occupational field; field of study; gender differences This research was supported by the Dutch Scientific Organisation (NWO) research talent grant entitled 'Gendered Choices: school and field of study trajectories of male and female adolescents in four European countries' [grant number 406-12-018]. Additionally, financial support from the NORFACE research programme on Migration in Europe -Social, Economic, Cultural and Policy Dynamics and from "NWO middelgroot" [480-11-013] is acknowledged. *Corresponding author. Department of Sociology/ICS, Radboud University Nijmegen, Thomas van Aquinostraat 6, 6525 GD Nijmegen, The Netherlands. E-mail: m.vandervleuten@maw.ru.nl. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.British Educational Research Journal Vol. 44, No. 2, April 2018, pp. 294-318 DOI: 10.1002 Introduction Boys and girls are still segregated into different occupational fields, partly owing to persistent gender differences in fields of study. Boys are more likely to enter gender-stereotypical masculine fields of study such as engineering and mathematics, whereas girls are more likely to enter gender-stereotypical feminine fields such as the hum...

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Section: Occupational Status Effectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Intergenerational transmission of gender segregation: How parents’ occupational field affects gender differences in field of study choices

Vleuten

Jaspers

Maas

et al. 2018

British Educational Res J

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Given that panel data with sufficiently observed potential confounders of fields' sex ratio remain unavailable, cross sectional studies of differences between academic fields or occupations continue to offer valuable insights (de Ruijter et al, 2003;Magnusson, 2009;Grönlund and Magnusson, 2013). Bobbitt-Zeher (2007) and Leuze and Strauß (2012) link horizontal sex segregation in higher education to devaluation theory with regards to the nonacademic labor market and find an association between sex composition and earnings.…”

Section: Valuative Discrimination: Sex Typingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Why Do Women's Fields of Study Pay Less? A Test of Devaluation, Human Capital, and Gender Role Theory

Ochsenfeld¹

2017

Preprint

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As men are overrepresented in lucrative fields and women disproportionately graduate from disciplines that yield low wages in the labor market, horizontal sex segregation in higher education contributes significantly to economic gender inequality. But what underlies the association between sex composition and wages in fields of study? We draw on data from the German HIS Graduate Panel Study 1997 (N=4092) and use hierarchical linear models to adjudicate between devaluation theory and explanations based on differential sorting processes: human capital and gender role theory. The resulting evidence for both human capital and devaluation theory is scant. Consistent with gender role theory, differences in the attractiveness of fields to students with a careerist approach to higher education and the labor market in turn explain most of the association between field of studies’ sex composition and wage levels. We therefore conclude that gendered patterns of self-selection which derive from men’s socialization into the breadwinner role rather than valuative discrimination or rational anticipation of career interruptions underlie the association between fields’ sex composition and wage levels.

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“…Many studies found that females outperformed males during adolescence and young adulthood, e.g., in terms of grades and university degrees (Annen et al 2011). Yet, women fail to transfer their educational achievement to corresponding occupational positions (Magnusson 2009). One of the explanations offered in the literature has to do with fertility, more precisely with lapsing into traditional family models once the first child is born (cf.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Interplay between Educational Achievement, Occupational Success, and Well-Being

2012

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Many studies have examined the effect of life events, education, and income on well-being.Conversely, research concerning well-being as a predictor of life course outcomes is sparse.Diener's suggestion "to inquire about the effects of well-being on future behavior and success" has, with some exceptions, not yet come to fruition. This article contributes to this body of research. We conceptualize and analyze the interplay between educational achievement, occupational success, and well-being as a complex process. The relationship between these domains is examined drawing on a structure-agency framework derived from Bourdieu and Social Comparison Theory. Social comparison between adolescents and their parents is suggested to be the mechanism explaining the effects of successful and unsuccessful intergenerational transmission of educational achievement and occupational success on well-being. It is further argued that well-being may serve as an individual resource by fostering educational and occupational outcomes.Panel data from the Transition from Education to Employment (TREE) project, a Swiss PISA 2000 follow-up study, was used. The interplay between well-being and successful and unsuccessful intergenerational transfer of educational attainment was analyzed in an autoregressive cross-lagged mixture model framework. Social comparison was found to be related to well-being, while well-being proved to significantly increase the probability of successful intergenerational transfer of educational attainment.

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Gender, Occupational Prestige, and Wages: A Test of Devaluation Theory

Cited by 90 publications

References 38 publications

Intergenerational transmission of gender segregation: How parents’ occupational field affects gender differences in field of study choices

Intergenerational transmission of gender segregation: How parents’ occupational field affects gender differences in field of study choices

Why Do Women's Fields of Study Pay Less? A Test of Devaluation, Human Capital, and Gender Role Theory

The Interplay between Educational Achievement, Occupational Success, and Well-Being

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