Full Citation

Title: Does Rosie Like Riveting? Male and Female Occupational Choices

Citation Type: Working Paper

Publication Year: 2016

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Abstract: Occupational segregation and pay gaps by gender remain large while many of the constraints traditionally believed to be responsible for these gaps have weakened over time. Here, we explore the possibility that women and men have different tastes for the content of the work they do. We run regressions of job satisfaction on the share of males in an occupation. Overall, there is a strong negative relationship between female satisfaction and the share of males. This relationship is fairly stable across different specifications and is not attenuated by personal characteristics or proxies of job flexibility. The effect is muted for women but largely unchanged for men when we include three measures that proxy the content and context of the work in an occupation, which we label people, brains, and brawn. These results suggest that women may care more about job content, and this is a possible factor preventing them from entering some male dominated professions.

Url: http://www.nber.org/papers/w22495

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Authors: Lordan, Grace; Pischke, Jrn-Steffen

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Publication Number: 22495

Institution: NBER

Pages: 38

Publisher Location: Cambridge, MA

Data Collections: IPUMS USA, IPUMS CPS

Topics: Gender, Labor Force and Occupational Structure

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