Full Citation

Title: The Role of Gender in Employment Polarization The Role of Gender in Employment Polarization

Citation Type: Working Paper

Publication Year: 2017

ISBN:

ISSN: 1664-7041

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Abstract: We document that U.S. employment polarization in the 1980-2008 period is largely generated by women. Female employment shares increase both at the bottom and at the top of the skill distribution, generating the typical U-shape polarization graph, while male employment shares decrease in a more similar fashion along the whole skill distribution. We show that a canonical model of skill-biased technological change augmented with a gender dimension, an endogenous market/home labor choice and a multi-sector environment accounts well for gender and overall employment polarization. The model also accounts for the absence of employment polarization during the 1960-1980 period and broadly reproduces the different evolution of employment shares across decades during the 1980-2008 period. The faster growth of skill-biased technological change since the 1980s accounts for most of the employment polarization generated by the model.

Url: https://ideas.repec.org/p/cfm/wpaper/1704.html

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Authors: Cerina, Fabio; Moro, Alessio; Petersen Rendall, Michelle

Series Title: Department of Economics Working Papers

Publication Number: 250

Institution: University of Zurich

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Data Collections: IPUMS USA

Topics: Gender, Labor Force and Occupational Structure, Other

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