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Investigating the gender wealth gap across occupational classes

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  • Waitkus, Nora
  • Minkus, Lara

Abstract

This study examines the role of occupational class in the Gender Wealth Gap (GWG). Despite rising interest in gender differences in wealth, the central role of occupations in restricting and enabling its accumulation has received less scrutiny thus far. Drawing on the German Socio-economic Panel, we employ quantile regressions and decomposition techniques. We find explanatory power of occupational class for the gender wealth gap, which operates despite accounting for other labour-market-relevant parameters, such as income, tenure, and full-time work experience at all points of the wealth distribution. Wealth gaps by gender vary between and within occupational classes. Particularly, women's under-representation among the self-employed and over-representation among socio-cultural professions explain the GWG. Our study thus adds another dimension of stratification - occupational class - to the discussion of the gendered distribution of wealth.

Suggested Citation

  • Waitkus, Nora & Minkus, Lara, 2021. "Investigating the gender wealth gap across occupational classes," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 108206, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:108206
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    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/108206/
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    2. Tisch, Daria & Schechtl, Manuel, 2023. "The Gender (Tax) Gap in Parental Transfers. Evidence from Administrative Inheritance and Gift Tax Data," SocArXiv kfetw, Center for Open Science.
    3. Oaxaca, Ronald L. & Sierminska, Eva, 2023. "Oaxaca-Blinder Meets Kitagawa: What Is the Link?," IZA Discussion Papers 16188, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Philipp M. Lersch & Emanuela Struffolino & Agnese Vitali, 2022. "Wealth in Couples: Introduction to the Special Issue," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 38(4), pages 623-641, October.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    gender wealth gap; inequality; gender; wealth; occupational class;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • R14 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Land Use Patterns
    • J01 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General - - - Labor Economics: General
    • N0 - Economic History - - General

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