Gender differences in the skill content of jobs

Abstract

There is significant heterogeneity in actual skill use within occupations even though occupations are differentiated by the task workers should perform during work. Using data on 12 countries which are available both in the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies survey and International Social Survey Program, we show that women use their cognitive skills less than men even within the same occupation. The gap in skill intensity cannot be explained by differences in worker characteristics or in cognitive skills. Instead, we show that living in a partnership significantly increases the skill use of men compared with women. We argue that having a partner affects skill use through time allocation as the gender penalty of partnered women is halved once we control for working hours and hours spent on housework. Finally, we do not find evidence of workplace discrimination against women.

Mainstreaming the Gender: Measuring the Job Attributes and Gender Differences across Selected EU Member States

“…However, the meaning of certain terms may vary from country to country, as it depends on the cultural, economic and political environment in a given country [3,21]. This is in line with the findings of Hungarian and Danish authors claiming we know much less about what people actually do at their workplaces and the causes of within-occupation gender differences compared to relatively robust literature evidence on general gender differences in the labor market [22,23]. Although the literature agrees on two dimensions of the division of job attributes (external and internal), we are not sure whether these two dimensions are present or understood in the same way in each country.…”

Switching off automatic pilot to promote wellbeing and performance in the workplace: the role of mindfulness and basic psychological needs satisfaction

“…Participants provided demographic information, including gender, age, education, job and organizational tenure, and position occupied. Considering the importance of these variables for the happy-productive worker thesis (e.g., Harari et al, 2017 ; Petö and Reizer, 2021 ; Previtali and Spedale, 2021 ), we controlled for their potential effects in statistical analyses.…”

The role of overeducation and horizontal mismatch for gender inequalities in labor income of higher education graduates in Europe

“…Vertical and horizontal mismatches may contribute to gender inequality in labor income of tertiary education graduates because the probability of experiencing a mismatch is not necessarily the same for men and women (e.g. Addison et al, 2020; Petö and Reizer, 2021).…”

“…Based on data from the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies survey (PIAAC), Petö and Reizer (2021) analyzed gender differentials in skill use in 12 countries and found that, even within the same occupation, women report a lower usage of numeracy, literacy, and ICT skills compared to men. At the same time, skills and skill-task matches lead to income premiums even within the same occupation.…”