Why Is There a Gender Wage Gap According to Occupational Prestige?

Abstract

Studies have shown that women receive lower wage returns to attained occupational prestige than do men. In this article, I examine whether the gender difference in wage return for attained occupational prestige can be explained by men's and women's different family obligations, and whether gender differences in work characteristics, which are difficult to combine with family duties, account for some of the gender wage gap in returns for attained occupational prestige. If women's family obligations were a major cause of women's disadvantage, the negative interaction between women and occupational prestige with regard to wages would be larger for mothers and married/cohabiting women than for single women without children. Results show a gender wage gap between married/ cohabiting men and women with children that increases with occupational prestige. However, the interaction between gender and prestige is insignificant among single women and men and among married/cohabiting respondents without children. Furthermore, when controlling for time-consuming work, the gender wage gap for married/cohabiting respondents with children according to occupational prestige narrows, especially in occupations with high prestige.

Gender, Parenthood and Wage Differences: The Importance of Time-Consuming Job Characteristics

“…Thus, to obtain the best possible wage growth in high-prestige occupations, the employee must be constantly available to the employer to work extra hours and to take part in activities outside normal working hours (e.g., Blair-Loy 2003). This assumption about what is here defined as time-consuming job characteristics is supported by a previous Swedish study indicating that gender wage differences among parents in high-prestige occupations is largely attributed to gender differences in access to employment characterized by time-consuming job conditions, such as over-time work, business travel and unpaid overtime (Magnusson 2010). However, to our knowledge, no previous study has examined the importance of time-consuming and wage promoting job characteristics to understanding both the gender wage gap at different levels of occupational prestige and the within-gender association between parenthood and wages, that is, whether differences in time-consuming work could account for potential wage premium or penalties for parenthood within-gender.…”

“…These characteristics are all not only difficult to combine with having the main responsibility for family life but also positively related to wages (Magnusson 2010). Business travel is included as a continuous variable measuring the number of overnight accommodations yearly that are related to work.…”

“…Such demands are often difficult to combine with an actual, or by the employer assumed, responsibility for the family (Magnusson 2010; Blair-Loy 2003; Williams 2000: 2010; Goldin 2014). According to the gender skewed division of family duties it is reasonable to assume that among those workers with family obligations, it is more difficult for women than men to have wage promoting job characteristics in high-prestigious occupations (Magnusson 2010; Blair-Loy 2003). In other words, it is reasonable to assume that women’s greater family responsibilities have a stronger negative effect on wages and career opportunities in high-prestigious positions than in low-prestigious occupations.…”

“…Thus, given education and skills, these job characteristics are therefore likely to restrict women more than men from holding highly paid positions in the labor market (Rutherford 2001; Blair-Loy 2003). For instance, Magnusson (2010) report that gender differences with respect to time-consuming job characteristics account for a substantial share of the gender gap in returns from occupational prestige among cohabiting fathers and mothers. Likewise, Goldin (2014) asserts that a substantial part of the remaining gender wage gap might be ascribed to the fact that employers tend to reward individuals who work long hours and who are available most of the time.…”

On Different Tracks? Gender, Professional Strategies, and Early Career Wage Gaps

“…Clearly, these wage gaps -also reported from welfare states promoting dual-earner families and gender equality, such as Sweden -are not sufficiently explained by traditional human capital factors. In fact, recent studies report that women's relative wages are particularly low among high-educated employees and in skilled occupations -that is, among groups that are presumably strongly committed to their work and careers (Evertsson et al, 2009;Magnusson, 2010;cf. Albrecht et al, 2003).…”