IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/red/sed011/574.html

Evolution of Gender Differences in Occupational Mobility and Wages

Author

Listed:
  • Kerem Cosar

    (University of Chicago Booth School of Business)

  • Sekyu Choi

    (Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona)

Abstract

The U.S. gender wage gap shrank steadily during the last quarter of the past century. Concurrently, the occupational composition of women converged to that of men as they left the home-sector, entered previously male dominated professional and managerial occupations, and started switching occupations as frequently as their male colleagues. Previous work has associated these gender-related labor market trends with either technological or institutional changes but did not decompose the outcomes in a unified general equilibrium setting. This paper attempts to do that. Our contribution is twofold. First, we structurally estimate gender-specific occupational entry and mobility cost parameters using Current Population Survey data. We find that the cost of switching to professional and managerial occupations relative to clerical occupations is 42% to 67% higher for women than it is for men. We also find a declining gap over time. Second, we simulate the estimated model to address the following question: what is the fraction of the reduced gender wage gap that can be attributed to the decreased mobility costs for women, and to shifts in the occupational wage structure?

Suggested Citation

  • Kerem Cosar & Sekyu Choi, 2011. "Evolution of Gender Differences in Occupational Mobility and Wages," 2011 Meeting Papers 574, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    • Handle: RePEc:red:sed011:574
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://red-files-public.s3.amazonaws.com/meetpapers/2011/paper_574.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jeremy Greenwood & Ananth Seshadri, 2004. "Engines of Liberation - Additional Notes," RCER Working Papers 506, University of Rochester - Center for Economic Research (RCER).
    2. Michelle Petersen Rendall, 2010. "Brain versus brawn: the realization of women's comparative advantage," IEW - Working Papers 491, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich, revised Jun 2017.
    3. Gueorgui Kambourov & Iourii Manovskii, 2008. "Rising Occupational And Industry Mobility In The United States: 1968-97," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 49(1), pages 41-79, February.
    4. Erhan Artuç & Shubham Chaudhuri & John McLaren, 2010. "Trade Shocks and Labor Adjustment: A Structural Empirical Approach," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(3), pages 1008-1045, June.
    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. Tschopp, Jeanne, 2015. "The Wage Response to Shocks: The Role of Inter-Occupational Labour Adjustment," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 28-37.
    2. Maximiliano Dvorkin, 2021. "International trade and labor reallocation: misclassification errors, mobility, and switching costs," Working Papers 2021-014, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, revised Jun 2024.
    3. Lorenzo Caliendo & Maximiliano Dvorkin & Fernando Parro, 2019. "Trade and Labor Market Dynamics: General Equilibrium Analysis of the China Trade Shock," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 87(3), pages 741-835, May.
    4. Elisa Keller, 2013. "Occupational Complexity, Experience, and the Gender Wage Gap," 2013 Meeting Papers 348, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    5. Bhalotra, Sonia R. & Fernandez Sierra, Manuel, 2018. "The Distribution of the Gender Wage Gap," IZA Discussion Papers 11640, IZA Network @ LISER.
    6. Maximiliano Dvorkin & Fernando Parro & Lorenzo Caliendo, 2015. "The Impact of Trade on Labor Market Dynamics," 2015 Meeting Papers 1532, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    7. Liu, Runjuan & Trefler, Daniel, 2019. "A sorted tale of globalization: White collar jobs and the rise of service offshoring," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 105-122.
    8. Proebsting, Christian, 2022. "Market segmentation and spending multipliers," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 1-19.
    9. Guido Matias Cortes & Giovanni Gallipoli, 2018. "The Costs of Occupational Mobility: An Aggregate Analysis," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 16(2), pages 275-315.
    10. Firsin, Oleg, 2023. "How does offshoring affect the wage impact of immigration?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 121(C).
    11. Avraham Ebenstein & Ann Harrison & Margaret McMillan, 2015. "Why are American Workers getting Poorer? China, Trade and Offshoring," NBER Working Papers 21027, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Lorenzo CALIENDO & Maximiliano DVORKIN & Fernando PARRO, 2016. "Trade and Labor Market Dynamics," Discussion papers 16050, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    13. Brussevich, Masha, 2018. "Does trade liberalization narrow the gender wage gap? The role of sectoral mobility," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 305-333.
    14. Keller, Elisa, 2019. "Labor supply and gender differences in occupational choice," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 221-241.
    15. Federico Di Pace & Matthias Hertweck, 2019. "Labor Market Frictions, Monetary Policy, and Durable Goods," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 32, pages 274-304, April.
    16. Izaskun Zuazu, 2023. "Structural Change and Gender Sectoral Segregation in Sub-Saharan Africa," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_1027, Levy Economics Institute.
    17. Battisti, Michele & Gatto, Massimo Del & Parmeter, Christopher F., 2022. "Skill-biased technical change and labor market inefficiency," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    18. Rania Gihleb & Osnat Lifshitz, 2022. "Dynamic Effects of Educational Assortative Mating on Labor Supply," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 46, pages 302-327, October.
    19. Ferdinando Monte & Stephen J. Redding & Esteban Rossi-Hansberg, 2018. "Commuting, Migration, and Local Employment Elasticities," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(12), pages 3855-3890, December.
    20. Laura Jeanet Mart√≠nez Rodr√≠guez, 2017. "Impacto de la ola invernal sobre las din√°micas de uso del tiempo de hogares rurales," Documentos CEDE 15603, Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE.

    More about this item

    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:red:sed011:574. 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: Christian Zimmermann (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sedddea.html .

    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.