IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/eecrev/v115y2019icp221-241.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Labor supply and gender differences in occupational choice

Author

Listed:
  • Keller, Elisa

Abstract

This paper uses data on the task content of occupations to study the role of labor supply in occupational choice. In 1970, married women were less likely to choose occupations characterized by analytically intensive tasks than were men. By 2010, gender differences in occupational choice had narrowed significantly. I use the Dictionary of Occupational Titles to measure the value of skill in an occupation and find an increase in this value with the analytical intensity of occupational tasks. I argue that, as a significant part of skill is accumulated on the job, sources that encourage women to commit to market work contributed to the gender convergence in occupational choice. A quantitative exercise measures that labor-saving technical change in the household sector, occupation-biased technical change in final good production, declining gender gaps in wages and schooling account for 58% of the gender convergence in occupational choice, via the labor supply channel.

Suggested Citation

  • Keller, Elisa, 2019. "Labor supply and gender differences in occupational choice," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 221-241.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:eecrev:v:115:y:2019:i:c:p:221-241
    DOI: 10.1016/j.euroecorev.2019.03.002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S001429211930042X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.euroecorev.2019.03.002?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Claudia Goldin & Lawrence F. Katz & Ilyana Kuziemko, 2006. "The Homecoming of American College Women: The Reversal of the College Gender Gap," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 20(4), pages 133-156, Fall.
    2. Diego Restuccia & Guillaume Vandenbroucke, 2013. "The Evolution Of Education: A Macroeconomic Analysis," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 54, pages 915-936, August.
    3. repec:ucp:bknber:9780226304557 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Fatih Guvenen & Michelle Rendall, 2015. "Women's Emancipation through Education: A Macroeconomic Analysis," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 18(4), pages 931-956, October.
    5. Claudia Olivetti & Barbara Petrongolo, 2016. "The Evolution of Gender Gaps in Industrialized Countries," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 8(1), pages 405-434, October.
    6. Valerie A. Ramey & Neville Francis, 2009. "A Century of Work and Leisure," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 1(2), pages 189-224, July.
    7. Claudia Olivetti & Barbara Petrongolo, 2016. "The Evolution of Gender Gaps in Industrialized Countries," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 8(1), pages 405-434, October.
    8. Goldin, Claudia, 1992. "Understanding the Gender Gap: An Economic History of American Women," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195072709.
    9. Jeremy Greenwood & Ananth Seshadri & Mehmet Yorukoglu, 2005. "Engines of Liberation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 72(1), pages 109-133.
    10. Jeremy Greenwood & Nezih Guner & Georgi Kocharkov & Cezar Santos, 2016. "Technology and the Changing Family: A Unified Model of Marriage, Divorce, Educational Attainment, and Married Female Labor-Force Participation," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 8(1), pages 1-41, January.
    11. Claudia Olivetti, 2006. "Changes in Women's Hours of Market Work: The Role of Returns to Experience," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 9(4), pages 557-587, October.
    12. Claudia Goldin, 2006. "The Quiet Revolution That Transformed Women's Employment, Education, and Family," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(2), pages 1-21, May.
    13. Claudia Goldin & Lawrence F. Katz, 2002. "The Power of the Pill: Oral Contraceptives and Women's Career and Marriage Decisions," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 110(4), pages 730-770, August.
    14. Ramey, Valerie A., 2009. "Time Spent in Home Production in the Twentieth-Century United States: New Estimates from Old Data," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 69(1), pages 1-47, March.
    15. Claudia Goldin, 2014. "A Grand Gender Convergence: Its Last Chapter," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(4), pages 1091-1119, April.
    16. You, Hye Mi, 2014. "The contribution of rising school quality to U.S. economic growth," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 95-106.
    17. Galor, Oded & Weil, David N, 1996. "The Gender Gap, Fertility, and Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(3), pages 374-387, June.
    18. Christian Siegel, 2017. "Female Relative Wages, Household Specialization and Fertility," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 24, pages 152-174, March.
    19. Greenwood, Jeremy & Seshadri, Ananth, 2005. "Technological Progress and Economic Transformation," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 19, pages 1225-1273, Elsevier.
    20. Erosa, Andres & Fuster, Luisa & Restuccia, Diego, 2016. "A quantitative theory of the gender gap in wages," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 165-187.
    21. McGrattan, Ellen R & Rogerson, Richard & Wright, Randall, 1997. "An Equilibrium Model of the Business Cycle with Household Production and Fiscal Policy," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 38(2), pages 267-290, May.
    22. Firpo, Sergio & Fortin, Nicole M. & Lemieux, Thomas, 2011. "Occupational Tasks and Changes in the Wage Structure," IZA Discussion Papers 5542, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    23. Kong, Y.-C. & Ravikumar, B. & Vandenbroucke, G., 2018. "Explaining cross-cohort differences in life-cycle earnings," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 157-184.
    24. Michelle Petersen Rendall, 2010. "Brain versus brawn: the realization of women's comparative advantage," IEW - Working Papers 491, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich, revised Jun 2017.
    25. Goldin, Claudia, 2006. "The Quiet Revolution That Transformed Women’s Employment, Education, and Family," Scholarly Articles 2943933, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    26. Francine D. Blau, 1998. "Trends in the Well-Being of American Women, 1970-1995," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 36(1), pages 112-165, March.
    27. Mark M. Pitt & Mark R. Rosenzweig & Mohammad Nazmul Hassan, 2012. "Human Capital Investment and the Gender Division of Labor in a Brawn-Based Economy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(7), pages 3531-3560, December.
    28. Acemoglu, Daron & Autor, David, 2011. "Skills, Tasks and Technologies: Implications for Employment and Earnings," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 12, pages 1043-1171, Elsevier.
    29. James Heckman & Lance Lochner & Christopher Taber, 1998. "Explaining Rising Wage Inequality: Explanations With A Dynamic General Equilibrium Model of Labor Earnings With Heterogeneous Agents," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 1(1), pages 1-58, January.
    30. Bar, Michael & Leukhina, Oksana, 2011. "On the time allocation of married couples since 1960," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 491-510.
    31. Michelle Rendall & Fatih Guvenen, 2009. "Emancipation through Education," 2009 Meeting Papers 70, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    32. Mark Aguiar & Erik Hurst, 2007. "Measuring Trends in Leisure: The Allocation of Time Over Five Decades," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(3), pages 969-1006.
    33. Daron Acemoglu, 2002. "Technical Change, Inequality, and the Labor Market," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 40(1), pages 7-72, March.
    34. John Knowles, 2009. "High-Powered Jobs: Can Contraception Technology Explain Trends in Women's Occupational Choice?," 2009 Meeting Papers 865, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    35. Robert J. Gordon, 1990. "The Measurement of Durable Goods Prices," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number gord90-1, March.
    36. Polachek, Solomon William, 1981. "Occupational Self-Selection: A Human Capital Approach to Sex Differences in Occupational Structure," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 63(1), pages 60-69, February.
    37. Chang‐Tai Hsieh & Erik Hurst & Charles I. Jones & Peter J. Klenow, 2019. "The Allocation of Talent and U.S. Economic Growth," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 87(5), pages 1439-1474, September.
    38. Shintaro Yamaguchi, 2013. "Changes in Returns to Task-Specific Skills and Gender Wage Gap," Department of Economics Working Papers 2013-01, McMaster University.
    39. Claudia Goldin & Lawrence F. Katz, 2012. "The Most Egalitarian of All Professions: Pharmacy and the Evolution of a Family-Friendly Occupation," NBER Working Papers 18410, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jana Schuetz, 2024. "Beliefs about the Gender Pension Gap," Jena Economics Research Papers 2024-004, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
    2. Paez, Gustavo Nicolas & Tin, Myat Su, 2021. "Gender-based differences in Myanmar’s labor force," World Development Perspectives, Elsevier, vol. 21(C).
    3. Caunedo, Julieta & Keller, Elisa, 2022. "Technical change and the demand for talent," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 65-88.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Caunedo, Julieta & Keller, Elisa, 2022. "Technical change and the demand for talent," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 65-88.
    2. Jeremy Greenwood & Nezih Guner & Guillaume Vandenbroucke, 2017. "Family Economics Writ Large," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 55(4), pages 1346-1434, December.
    3. L. Rachel Ngai & Barbara Petrongolo, 2017. "Gender Gaps and the Rise of the Service Economy," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 9(4), pages 1-44, October.
    4. Petrongolo, Barbara & Ronchi, Maddalena, 2020. "Gender gaps and the structure of local labor markets," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    5. Doepke, M. & Tertilt, M., 2016. "Families in Macroeconomics," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1789-1891, Elsevier.
    6. Bhalotra, Sonia & Fernandez Sierra, Manuel, 2018. "The distribution of the gender wage gap," ISER Working Paper Series 2018-10, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    7. Jeremy Greenwood & Nezih Guner & Guillaume Vandenbroucke, 2017. "Family Economics Writ Large," Working Papers wp2018_1706, CEMFI.
    8. Giovanni Razzu & Carl Singleton & Mark Mitchell, 2020. "On why the gender employment gap in Britain has stalled since the early 1990s," Industrial Relations Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(6), pages 476-501, November.
    9. Stefania Albanesi & Claudia Olivetti, 2016. "Gender Roles and Medical Progress," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 124(3), pages 650-695.
    10. Akbulut, Rahşan, 2011. "Sectoral Changes And The Increase In Women'S Labor Force Participation," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 15(2), pages 240-264, April.
    11. Krenz, Astrid & Strulik, Holger, 2022. "Automation and the fall and rise of the servant economy," University of Göttingen Working Papers in Economics 431, University of Goettingen, Department of Economics.
    12. Mancini, Giulia, 2019. "The determinants of female labor supply in Italy, 1881-2018," MPRA Paper 102165, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Daniela Vidart, 2021. "Human Capital, Female Employment, and Electricity: Evidence from the Early 20th Century United States," Working papers 2021-08, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics, revised Sep 2022.
    14. Bhalotra, Sonia R & Fernández, Manuel & Wang, Fan, 2022. "The distribution of the gender wage gap : An equilibrium model," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 614, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    15. Rania Gihleb & Osnat Lifshitz, 2022. "Dynamic Effects of Educational Assortative Mating on Labor Supply," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 46, pages 302-327, October.
    16. Stefania Albanesi & Claudia Olivetti, 2006. "Gender roles and technological progress," 2006 Meeting Papers 411, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    17. Claudia Olivetti & Barbara Petrongolo, 2016. "The Evolution of Gender Gaps in Industrialized Countries," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 8(1), pages 405-434, October.
    18. Fernández, Raquel & Wong, Joyce Cheng, 2011. "The Disappearing Gender Gap: The Impact of Divorce, Wages, and Preferences on Education Choices and Women's Work," IZA Discussion Papers 6046, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    19. Ariell Reshef, 2013. "Is Technological Change Biased Towards the Unskilled in Services? An Empirical Investigation," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 16(2), pages 312-331, April.
    20. Diego Restuccia & Guillaume Vandenbroucke, 2014. "Explaining Educational Attainment across Countries and over Time," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 17(4), pages 824-841, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Occupational choice; Labor supply; Technological progress; Calibration;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • O40 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:eecrev:v:115:y:2019:i:c:p:221-241. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/eer .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.