IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ebl/ecbull/eb-20-00646.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The social pay gap among occupational twins: a task-based comparison

Author

Listed:
  • Elisabeth Bublitz

    (Universität Hamburg)

  • Tobias Regner

    (Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena)

Abstract

The relevance of certain occupations for society has become evident during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the societal appreciation does not show in earnings, particularly not for care work. In light of the ongoing calls for pay raises in these occupations, our paper provides a rationale to identify differences in job content and pay between social and other occupations. We propose a data-driven approach that compares all jobs based on their tasks content. Accordingly, 13 % of all occupations are highly comparable and, within this group, the wage penalty of social occupations (e.g., health care, education) corresponds to up to around €500 lower earnings per month.

Suggested Citation

  • Elisabeth Bublitz & Tobias Regner, 2020. "The social pay gap among occupational twins: a task-based comparison," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 40(3), pages 2440-2444.
    • Handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-20-00646
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.accessecon.com/Pubs/EB/2020/Volume40/EB-20-V40-I3-P213.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David H. Autor & Lawrence F. Katz & Melissa S. Kearney, 2008. "Trends in U.S. Wage Inequality: Revising the Revisionists," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 90(2), pages 300-323, May.
    2. Altonji, Joseph G. & Blank, Rebecca M., 1999. "Race and gender in the labor market," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 48, pages 3143-3259, Elsevier.
    3. David H. Autor & Frank Levy & Richard J. Murnane, 2003. "The skill content of recent technological change: an empirical exploration," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue Nov.
    4. Bublitz, Elisabeth & Regner, Tobias, 2016. "The social pay gap across occupations: Survey and experimental evidence," HWWI Research Papers 174, Hamburg Institute of International Economics (HWWI).
    5. Claudia Goldin, 2014. "A Grand Gender Convergence: Its Last Chapter," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(4), pages 1091-1119, April.
    6. Christina Gathmann & Uta Schönberg, 2010. "How General Is Human Capital? A Task-Based Approach," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 28(1), pages 1-49, January.
    7. Kristin J. Kleinjans & Karl Fritjof Krassel & Anthony Dukes, 2017. "Occupational Prestige and the Gender Wage Gap," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 70(4), pages 565-593, November.
    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. Bublitz, Elisabeth & Regner, Tobias, 2022. "The social pay gap across occupations: Experimental evidence," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    2. Sabine Krueger & Christian Ebner & Daniela Rohrbach-Schmidt, 2024. "Gender Composition and the Symbolic Value of Occupations: New Evidence of a U-shaped Relationship between Gender and Occupational Prestige Based on German Microdata," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 38(1), pages 242-261, February.

    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. Ge, Suqin & Zhou, Yu, 2020. "Robots, computers, and the gender wage gap," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 178(C), pages 194-222.
    2. Koomen, Miriam & Backes-Gellner, Uschi, 2022. "Occupational tasks and wage inequality in West Germany: A decomposition analysis," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    3. Grace Lordan & Jörn‐Steffen Pischke, 2022. "Does Rosie Like Riveting? Male and Female Occupational Choices," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 89(353), pages 110-130, January.
    4. Wolfgang Lechthaler & Mariya Mileva, 2019. "Trade liberalization and wage inequality: new insights from a dynamic trade model with heterogeneous firms and comparative advantage," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 155(3), pages 407-457, August.
    5. David Deming & Lisa B. Kahn, 2018. "Skill Requirements across Firms and Labor Markets: Evidence from Job Postings for Professionals," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 36(S1), pages 337-369.
    6. Sevinç, Orhun, 2017. "Skill-biased technical change and Labor market polarization:the role of skill heterogeneity within occupations," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 86147, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    7. Eckhardt Bode & Stephan Brunow & Ingrid Ott & Alina Sorgner, 2019. "Worker Personality: Another Skill Bias beyond Education in the Digital Age," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 20(4), pages 254-294, November.
    8. Edo, Anthony & Toubal, Farid, 2017. "Immigration and the gender wage gap," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 196-214.
    9. Halvarsson, Daniel & Lark, Olga & Tingvall, Patrik & Videnord, Josefin, 2022. "Bargaining for Trade: When Exporting Becomes Detrimental for Female Wages," Working Papers 2022:13, Lund University, Department of Economics.
    10. Ljubica Nedelkoska & Simon Wiederhold, 2010. "Technology, outsourcing, and the demand for heterogeneous labor: Exploring the industry dimension," Jena Economics Research Papers 2010-052, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
    11. Rita Pető & Balázs Reizer, 2021. "Gender differences in the skill content of jobs," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 34(3), pages 825-864, July.
    12. Bowlus, Audra J. & Mori, Hiroaki & Robinson, Chris, 2016. "Ageing and the skill portfolio: Evidence from job based skill measures," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 7(C), pages 89-103.
    13. Vahagn Jerbashian, 2019. "Automation and Job Polarization: On the Decline of Middling Occupations in Europe," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 81(5), pages 1095-1116, October.
    14. Halvarsson, Daniel & Lark, Olga & Tingvall, Patrik & Videnord, Josefin, 2022. "Bargaining for Trade: When Exporting Becomes Detrimental for Female Wages," Ratio Working Papers 361, The Ratio Institute.
    15. Daniela Rohrbach-Schmidt & Michael Tiemann, 2013. "Changes in workplace tasks in Germany—evaluating skill and task measures [Wandel der Tätigkeiten am Arbeitsplatz in Deutschland – Analysen von Skill und Task-Maßen]," Journal for Labour Market Research, Springer;Institute for Employment Research/ Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), vol. 46(3), pages 215-237, September.
    16. Lex Borghans & Bas Ter Weel & Bruce A. Weinberg, 2014. "People Skills and the Labor-Market Outcomes of Underrepresented Groups," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 67(2), pages 287-334, April.
    17. Halvarsson, Daniel & Lark, Olga & Tingvall, Patrik & Videnord, Josefin, 2022. "Bargaining for Trade: When Exporting Becomes Detrimental for Female Wages," Working Paper Series 1437, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    18. 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.
    19. Okumura, Tsunao & Usui, Emiko, 2016. "Intergenerational Transmission of Skills and Differences in Labor Market Outcomes for Blacks and Whites," IZA Discussion Papers 9662, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    20. Ezgi Kaya, 2023. "Gender wage gap trends in Europe: The role of occupational skill prices," International Labour Review, International Labour Organization, vol. 162(3), pages 385-405, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Inequality; tasks data; redistribution; social returns;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D2 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations
    • J3 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs

    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:ebl:ecbull:eb-20-00646. 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: John P. Conley (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.