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Do wages fall when women enter an occupation?

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  • Harris, Jorgen

Abstract

I present causal evidence on the effect of women's entry into occupations on wages in the United States. I construct a shift-share instrument that interacts the dramatic increase in women's educational attainment and workforce participation from 1960 to 2010 with the likelihood that men and women enter each occupation. I find that a 10 percentage-point increase in the female fraction within an occupation leads to an 8 percent decrease in average male wage and a 7 percent decrease in average female wage in the concurrent census year, and an 9 percent decrease in male wages and a 14 percent decrease in female wages over 10 years.

Suggested Citation

  • Harris, Jorgen, 2022. "Do wages fall when women enter an occupation?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:labeco:v:74:y:2022:i:c:s0927537121001378
    DOI: 10.1016/j.labeco.2021.102102
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    1. Doris Weichselbaumer & Juliane Ransmayr, 2022. "The role of sex segregation in the gender wage gap among university graduates in Germany," Economics working papers 2022-12, Department of Economics, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Economics of gender; Occupational choice; Human capital; Wage differentials; Discrimination; Labor force composition;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • J71 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination - - - Hiring and Firing
    • J82 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Standards - - - Labor Force Composition

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