The Gender Wage Gap among Young Adults in the United States: The Importance of Money versus People

Fortin, Nicole M.

doi:10.1353/jhr.2008.0006

Cited by 252 publications

(310 citation statements)

References 54 publications

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“…This is particularly striking given the detailed occupational categories we consider, but is consistent with previous research which concludes that, in terms of relative wages, occupational segregation does not substantially disadvantage (and indeed may even advantage) Australian women overall (Barón and Cobb-Clark, 2010;Kee, 2006;Kidd, 1993;Lee and Miller, 2004;Miller, 1987;Rimmer, 1991). Similarly, Bettio (2002) and Fortin (2008) find that, in Canada and Europe, within-occupation wage differentials are also the predominant explanation for the aggregate wage penalty that women face. They argue that women would be better served by policies that promoted advancement up the job ladder within occupations rather than redistribution across occupations towards the male pattern of employment.…”

Section: Decomposition Resultsmentioning

confidence: 95%

“…Unlike much of the emerging literature that seeks to link noncognitive skills to relative earnings (Braakmann, 2009;Fortin, 2008;Linz and Semykina, 2008;Manning and Swaffield, 2008;Mueller and Plug, 2006;Tan, 2009), we adopt a methodology which explicitly accounts for the role of noncognitive skills in the distribution of men's and women's employment across occupations.…”

Section: Conclusion and Directions For Future Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Recent research investigates this issue and generally concludes that noncognitive skills have a significant, but rather modest, role in explaining the gender wage gap (Braakmann, 2009;Fortin, 2008;Linz and Semykina, 2008;Manning and Swaffield, 2008;Mueller and Plug, 2006;Tan, 2009). These studies, however, analyse the effect of personality on relative wages conditional on the existing occupational distribution, thereby ignoring the effect of men's and women's noncognitive and cognitive skills on their occupational attainment.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Noncognitive skills, occupational attainment, and relative wages

Cobb‐Clark¹,

Tan²

2011

Labour Economics

181

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This paper examines whether men's and women's noncognitive skills influence their occupational attainment and, if so, whether this contributes to the disparity in their relative wages. We find that noncognitive skills have a substantial effect on the probability of employment in many, though not all, occupations in ways that differ by gender. Consequently, men and women with similar noncognitive skills enter occupations at very different rates. Women, however, have lower wages on average not because they work in different occupations than men do, but rather because they earn less than their male colleagues employed in the same occupation. On balance, women's noncognitive skills give them a slight wage advantage. Finally, we find that accounting for the endogeneity of occupational attainment more than halves the proportion of the overall gender wage gap that is unexplained.

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Section: Decomposition Resultsmentioning

confidence: 95%

Section: Conclusion and Directions For Future Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Noncognitive skills, occupational attainment, and relative wages

Cobb‐Clark¹,

Tan²

2011

Labour Economics

181

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“…Evidence from young individuals indicates that at ages 14 to 18, there are already significant gender gaps in self-determination and the importance assigned to money and work Fortin, 2008). Fortin (2008) uses the National Education Longitudinal Study (NELS), a nationally representative sample of eighth graders in 1988, which was re-surveyed through subsequent follow-ups.…”

Section: Columns 1 and 3 Ofmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gender Gaps in Performance: Evidence from Young Lawyers

Azmat

Ferrer

2017

Journal of Political Economy

130

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This paper documents and studies the gender gap in performance among associate lawyers in the United States. Unlike other high-skilled professions, the legal profession assesses performance using transparent measures that are widely used and comparable across firms: the number of hours billed to clients and the amount of new client revenue generated. We find clear evidence of a gender gap in annual performance with respect to both measures. Male lawyers bill ten percent more hours and bring in more than twice the new client revenue than do female lawyers. We demonstrate that the differential impact across genders in the presence of young children and differences in aspirations to become a law firm partner account for a large share of the difference in performance. We also show that accounting for performance has important consequences for gender gaps in lawyers' earnings and subsequent promotion. Whereas individual and firm characteristics explain up to 50 percent of the earnings gap, the inclusion of performance measures explains a substantial share of the remainder.Performance measures also explain a sizeable share of the gender gap in promotion.

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“…The nonexperimental evidence on this topic typically uses predetermined measures of attitudes to predict earnings gaps. Fortin (2008) uses longitudinal data to investigate the role of greed and altruism, and concludes that differences in these preferences -as recorded prior to labor market entry -are a modest but significant important predictor of earnings gaps. Manning and Swaffield (2008) use similar information on a comprehensive set of preferences (risk attitudes, attitudes towards competition, self-esteem and overconfidence, and other-regarding preferences), and show that these can explain around one fifth of the earnings gap.…”

Section: Individual Preferencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gender and the labor market: What have we learned from field and lab experiments?

2014

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We discuss the contribution of the experimental literature to the understanding of both traditional and previously unexplored dimensions of gender differences and discuss their bearings on labor market outcomes. Experiments have offered new findings on gender discrimination, and while they have identified a bias against hiring women in some labor market segments, the discrimination detected in field experiments is less pervasive than that implied by the regression approach. Experiments have also offered new insights into gender differences in preferences: to gain less from negotiation, women appear to have lower preferences than men for risk and competition and may be more sensitive to social cues. These gender differences in preferences also have implications in group settings, whereby the gender composition of a group affects team decisions and performance. Most of the evidence on gender traits comes from the lab, and key open questions remain as to the source of gender preferences-nature versus nurture, or their interaction-and their role, if any, in the workplace.JEL classification: J16, J24, J71, C91, C92, C93

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The Gender Wage Gap among Young Adults in the United States: The Importance of Money versus People

Cited by 252 publications

References 54 publications

Noncognitive skills, occupational attainment, and relative wages

Noncognitive skills, occupational attainment, and relative wages

Gender Gaps in Performance: Evidence from Young Lawyers

Gender and the labor market: What have we learned from field and lab experiments?

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