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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:

    1. Verdugo, Gregory & Allègre, Guillaume, 2020. "Labour force participation and job polarization: Evidence from Europe during the Great Recession," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    2. Nir Jaimovich & Itay Saporta-Eksten & Henry Siu & Yaniv Yedid-Levi, 2020. "The macroeconomics of automation: data, theory, and policy analysis," ECON - Working Papers 340, Department of Economics - University of Zurich.
    3. Bhalotra, Sonia R. & Karlsson, Martin & Nilsson, Therese & Schwarz, Nina, 2016. "Infant Health, Cognitive Performance and Earnings: Evidence from Inception of the Welfare State in Sweden," IZA Discussion Papers 10339, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. 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.
    5. 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.
    6. Bhalotra, Sonia & Martin Karlsson & Therese Nilsson & Schwarz, Nina, 2021. "Infant Health, Cognitive Performance and Earnings : Evidence from Inception of the Welfare State in Sweden," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 1345, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.

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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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