Lohnungleichheiten zwischen Akademikerinnen und Akademikern: Der Einfluss von fachlicher Spezialisierung, frauendominierten Fächern und beruflicher Segregation / Wage Inequality between Male and Female University Graduates: The Influence of Occupational Specialization, Female-Dominated Subjects and Occupational Segregation

Abstract

Zusammenfassung: Auf der Suche nach einer Erklärung für die bestehenden Lohnungleichheiten zwischen Männern und Frauen mit Hochschulabschluss untersucht der Artikel drei verschiedene Erklärungsansätze: Erstens die humankapitaltheoretische Erklärung, dass Frauen durch die Wahl von weniger berufsspezifischen Studienfächern finanzielle Nachteile auf dem Arbeitsmarkt erfahren; zweitens die These der Abwertung von frauendominierten Studienfächern, wie sie von feministisch-kulturellen Theorien beschrieben wird, und drittens die Bedeutung von Berufssegregation für Lohnungleichheiten, die durch die kulturelle Abwertung von Frauenberufen, aber auch durch institutionelle Rahmenbedingungen wie das deutsche System der tariflichen Lohnverhandlungen geprägt ist. Auf der Grundlage des HIS-Absolventenpanels 1997 werden die logarithmierten Brutto-Monatslçhne von vollzeiterwerbstätigen Männern und Frauen fünf Jahre nach Abschluss ihres Studiums modelliert. Die Ergebnisse unterstützen vor allem die These einer Diskriminierung von frauendominierten Studienfächern und Berufen, durch die jeweils 19 bzw. 13 Prozent der Lohnungleichheiten zwischen Akademikerinnen und Akademikern erklärt werden. Die Wahl von berufsunspezifischen Studienfächern scheint hingegen keinen Einfluss auf die Lohnentwicklung zu haben.Summary: This article looks into explanations for the wage inequalities between male and female higher education graduates by examining three different explanations: first, the human capital explanation, which claims that women's financial disadvantages on the labor market are due to their choice of less occupation-specific fields of study; second, the hypothesis of the devaluation of female-dominated subjects, as claimed in feminist cultural theories; and finally, the importance of occupational sex segregation for the gender wage gap as a function of the cultural devaluation of female-dominated occupations as well as national labor market institutions, such as the German system of collective bargaining. On basis of the HIS Absolventenpanel 1997 we estimate the gross monthly income of full-time employed men and women five years after graduation. Above all, the results support the assumption of a discrimination of female-dominated fields of studies and occupations, which explain 19 and 13 percent respectively of the gender wage gap among higher education graduates. The choice of a field of study with low occupational specificity, however, does not seem to have any influence on the income of either men or women.

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

“…They interpret this along the lines of devaluation theory but as Gerber and Cheung (2008: 307) have pointed out, such interpretation is unjustified because their analyses lack controls for potentially relevant confounders. Leuze and Strauß (2009) partly adjusted for this weakness in a study of German graduates by controlling for two measures of fields' occupation-specificity.…”

Gender-Specific Occupational Segregation, Glass Ceiling Effects, and Earnings in Managerial Positions: Results of a Fixed Effects Model

“…Further, managerial positions show gender-specific occupational differences in the size of the enterprise, the sector of the economy, and the industry (Bischoff 2010;Kleinert et al 2007): women more often head smaller firms, and they more frequently work in health care, welfare, and in the private services. Women with a university degree more often choose a field of study that is dominated by women, such as humanities (Leuze/Strauß 2009). In addition, female managers are more often employed in public services than in the private sector (Brader/Lewerenz 2006).…”

The Gender Income Gap and the Role of Family Formation Revisited: A Replication of Bobbitt-Zeher (2007)

“…In fact, studies published in the top U.S. and German sociology journals have drawn similar conclusions based on very similar designs before and after (Marini and Fan 1997;Leuze and Strauß 2009). …”