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The "End of Men" and Rise of Women in the High-Skilled Labor Market

Author

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  • Guido Matias Cortes
  • Nir Jaimovich
  • Henry E. Siu

Abstract

We document a new finding regarding changes in labor market outcomes for high-skilled men and women in the US. Since 1980, conditional on being a college-educated man, the probability of working in a cognitive/high-wage occupation has fallen. This contrasts starkly with the experience for college-educated women: their probability of working in these occupations rose, despite a much larger increase in the supply of educated women relative to men. We show that one key channel capable of rationalizing these findings is a greater increase in the demand for female-oriented skills in cognitive/high-wage occupations relative to other occupations. Using occupation-level data, we find evidence that this relative increase in the demand for female skills is due to an increasing importance of social skills within such occupations. Evidence from both male and female wages is also indicative of an increase in the demand for social skills. Finally, we document how these patterns change across the early and latter portions of the period.

Suggested Citation

  • Guido Matias Cortes & Nir Jaimovich & Henry E. Siu, 2018. "The "End of Men" and Rise of Women in the High-Skilled Labor Market," NBER Working Papers 24274, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:24274
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

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    3. Anna Matysiak & Wojciech Hardy & Lucas van der Velde, 2025. "Structural Labour Market Change and Gender Inequality in Earnings," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 39(2), pages 426-448, April.
    4. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/4igrl22i129kl9t3bjsriribbs is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Sonia Bhalotra & Martin Karlsson & Therese Nilsson & Nina Schwarz, 2022. "Infant Health, Cognitive Performance, and Earnings: Evidence from Inception of the Welfare State in Sweden," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 104(6), pages 1138-1156, November.
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    8. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/4igrl22i129kl9t3bjsriribbs is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Kovalenko, Tim & Töpfer, Marina, 2021. "Cyclical dynamics and the gender pay gap: A structural VAR approach," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    10. Verdugo, Gregory & Allègre, Guillaume, 2020. "Labour force participation and job polarization: Evidence from Europe during the Great Recession," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    11. Atalay, Enghin & Phongthiengtham, Phai & Sotelo, Sebastian & Tannenbaum, Daniel, 2018. "New technologies and the labor market," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 48-67.
    12. Zhang, Su & Xia, Yan & Wang, Huijuan & Pan, Jiaofeng, 2025. "The good, the bad: How digital technology shapes welfare for formal and flexible workers?," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 2007-2029.
    13. Devereux, Kevin, 2018. "Identifying the value of teamwork: Application to professional tennis," CLEF Working Paper Series 14, Canadian Labour Economics Forum (CLEF), University of Waterloo.
    14. Marcin Chlebus & Artur Nowak, 2023. "From Alchemy to Analytics: Unleashing the Potential of Technical Analysis in Predicting Noble Metal Price Movement," Working Papers 2023-13, Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw.
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    16. Giovanni Gallipoli & Khalil Esmkhani & Michael Böhm, 2019. "Skill-Biased Firms and the Distribution of Labor Market Returns," 2019 Meeting Papers 1199, Society for Economic Dynamics.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J23 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Demand

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