IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/woemps/v32y2018i2p368-386.html

Workplace Skill Investments – An Early Career Glass Ceiling? Job Complexity and Wages Among Young Professionals in Sweden

Author

Listed:
  • Katarina Boye

    (Stockholm University, Sweden)

  • Anne Grönlund

    (Umeå University, Sweden)

Abstract

Despite higher educational investments, women fall behind men on most indicators of labour market success. This study investigates whether workplace skill investments set men and women off on different tracks in which the human capital acquired through higher education is either devalued or further developed. A survey sample of Swedish men and women who recently graduated from five educational programmes, leading to occupations with different gender composition, is analysed ( N ≈ 2300). Results show that, a few years after graduation, men are more likely than women to acquire complex jobs and that this difference contributes to early career gender gaps in wages and employee bargaining power. The findings do not support the notion that child-related work interruptions provide a main mechanism for sorting women into less complex jobs.

Suggested Citation

  • Katarina Boye & Anne Grönlund, 2018. "Workplace Skill Investments – An Early Career Glass Ceiling? Job Complexity and Wages Among Young Professionals in Sweden," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 32(2), pages 368-386, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:woemps:v:32:y:2018:i:2:p:368-386
    DOI: 10.1177/0950017017744514
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0950017017744514
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0950017017744514?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Linda Babcock & Maria P. Recalde & Lise Vesterlund & Laurie Weingart, 2017. "Gender Differences in Accepting and Receiving Requests for Tasks with Low Promotability," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(3), pages 714-747, March.
    2. Edwin Leuven, 2005. "The Economics of Private Sector Training: A Survey of the Literature," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(1), pages 91-111, February.
    3. Duncan, Greg J & Hoffman, Saul, 1979. "On-the-Job Training and Earnings Differences by Race and Sex," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 61(4), pages 594-603, November.
    4. Walter Korpi, 2000. "Faces of Inequality: Gender, Class and Patterns of Inequalities in Different Types of Welfare States," LIS Working papers 224, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    5. Shelly Lundberg & Robert A. Pollak, 1996. "Bargaining and Distribution in Marriage," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 10(4), pages 139-158, Fall.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Susanne Fahlén, 2016. "Equality at home - A question of career? Housework, norms, and policies in a European comparative perspective," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 35(48), pages 1411-1440.
    2. Lim, Misun & dos Santos, Sascha, 2025. "The gendered impact of parenthood on job-related training participation in Germany and the United Kingdom," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 41(2), pages 278-298.
    3. Korpi, Tomas & Tåhlin, Michael, 2018. "On-the-job training: A skill match approach to the determinants and outcomes of lifelong learning," Working Paper Series 7/2018, Stockholm University, Swedish Institute for Social Research.
    4. Lössbroek, Jelle & Radl, Jonas, 2019. "Teaching older workers new tricks: workplace practices and gender training differences in nine European countries," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 39(10), pages 2170-2193.
    5. Sonia Oreffice & Climent Quintana-Domeque, 2012. "A Matter of Weight? The Role of Spouses. Physical Attractiveness on Hours of Work," CHILD Working Papers Series 7, Centre for Household, Income, Labour and Demographic Economics (CHILD) - CCA.
    6. Michael E. Martell & Peyton Nash, 2020. "For Love and Money? Earnings and Marriage Among Same-Sex Couples," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 41(3), pages 260-294, September.
    7. Leanne Roncolato & Alex Roomets, 2020. "Who will change the “baby?” Examining the power of gender in an experimental setting," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 18(3), pages 823-852, September.
    8. Miriam Marcén & Marina Morales, 2019. "Live together: does culture matter?," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 17(2), pages 671-713, June.
    9. Svenja Gärtner, 2013. "German Stagnation vs. Swedish Progression: Gender Wage Gaps in Comparison, 1960-2006," LIS Working papers 586, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    10. Eugene Choo & Shannon Seitz, 2013. "The Collective Marriage Matching Model: Identification, Estimation, and Testing," Advances in Econometrics, in: Structural Econometric Models, volume 31, pages 291-336, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    11. Kasey Buckles & Melanie Guldi & Joseph Price, 2011. "Changing the Price of Marriage: Evidence from Blood Test Requirements," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 46(3), pages 539-567.
    12. Julie Vinck & Idunn Brekke, 2019. "Gender and education inequalities in parental employment when having a young child with increased care needs: Belgium and Norway compared," Working Papers 1904, Herman Deleeck Centre for Social Policy, University of Antwerp.
    13. Mahmud Rice, James & Goodin, Robert E. & Parpo, Antti, 2006. "The Temporal Welfare State: A Crossnational Comparison," Journal of Public Policy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 26(3), pages 195-228, December.
    14. Mohammad Ashraf, 2009. "Characteristics of female managers in the US labour market," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(17), pages 1683-1686.
    15. Kouki, Amairisa, 2023. "Beyond the “Comforts” of work from home: Child health and the female wage penalty," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).
    16. Rosen, Harvey S, 1982. "Taxation and On-the-Job Training Decisions," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 64(3), pages 442-449, August.
    17. Anna Baranowska-Rataj & Anna Matysiak, 2016. "The Causal Effects of the Number of Children on Female Employment - Do European Institutional and Gender Conditions Matter?," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 37(3), pages 343-367, September.
    18. Siwan Anderson & Jean-Marie Baland, 2002. "The Economics of Roscas and Intrahousehold Resource Allocation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(3), pages 963-995.
    19. LaFave, Daniel & Thomas, Duncan, 2017. "Extended families and child well-being," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 52-65.
    20. Nicolás Ajzenman & Bruno Ferman & Pedro C. Sant'Anna, 2025. "Discrimination in the Formation of Academic Networks: A Field Experiment on #EconTwitter," American Economic Review: Insights, American Economic Association, vol. 7(3), pages 357-375, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    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:sae:woemps:v:32:y:2018:i:2:p:368-386. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.britsoc.co.uk/ .

    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.