IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/ilrrev/v76y2023i1p86-111.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Gender Inequality, Bargaining, and Pay in Care Services in the United States

Author

Listed:
  • Nancy Folbre
  • Leila Gautham
  • Kristin Smith

Abstract

The authors argue that paid providers of care services in the United States (in health, education, and social service industries) are less able than providers of business services to capture value-added or to extract rents because limited consumer sovereignty, incomplete information regarding quality, and large positive externalities reduce their relative market power. In addition, many care jobs enforce normative responsibility for others and require specific skills that limit cross-industry mobility. Analysis of Current Population Survey data for 2014 to 2019 reveals significant pay penalties in care services relative to business services, controlling for factors such as gender, education, occupation, and public or private employment. Women’s concentration in care services explains a significant proportion of the gender wage gap and raises the possibility of significant potential benefits from industry-level bargaining strategies.

Suggested Citation

  • Nancy Folbre & Leila Gautham & Kristin Smith, 2023. "Gender Inequality, Bargaining, and Pay in Care Services in the United States," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 76(1), pages 86-111, January.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:ilrrev:v:76:y:2023:i:1:p:86-111
    DOI: 10.1177/00197939221091157
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00197939221091157
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/00197939221091157?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
    ---><---

    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:sae:ilrrev:v:76:y:2023:i:1:p:86-111. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.ilr.cornell.edu .

    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.