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Title: Miss-Allocation: The Value of Workplace Gender Composition and Occupational Segregation

Citation Type: Miscellaneous

Publication Year: 2022

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Abstract: I analyze the value workers ascribe to the gender composition of their workplace and the consequences of these valuations for occupational segregation, tipping, and welfare. To elicit these valuations, I survey 9,000 US adults using a hypothetical job choice experiment. This reveals that women value gender homophily in the workplace and men value gender diversity. Older female workers are more likely to value gender homophily, suggesting that gender norms and discrimination, which have declined over time, may help explain women's desire for homophily. Using these results, I estimate a structural model of occupation choice to assess their consequences for gender sorting and welfare. I find that workers' average composition valuations are not large enough to create tipping points, but they do reduce the female share in male-dominated occupations substantially. Gender composition valuations also create a sorting externality: a welfare-maximizing social planner would reallocate workers to substantially decrease segregation, improving consumption-equivalent welfare by about 2%.

Url: https://web.stanford.edu/~schuhr/files/schuh_rachel_jmp.pdf

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Authors: Schuh, Rachel

Publisher: Stanford University

Data Collections: IPUMS CPS

Topics: Gender, Labor Force and Occupational Structure

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