Gender-Specific Occupational Segregation, Glass Ceiling Effects, and Earnings in Managerial Positions: Results of a Fixed Effects Model

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. This series presents research findings based either directly on data from the German SocioEconomic Panel Study (SOEP) or using SOEP data as part of an internationally comparable data set (e.g. CNEF, ECHP, LIS, LWS, CHER/PACO). SOEP is a truly multidisciplinary household panel study covering a wide range of social and behavioral sciences: economics, sociology, psychology, survey methodology, econometrics and applied statistics, educational science, political science, public health, behavioral genetics, demography, geography, and sport science. Terms of use: Documents inThe decision to publish a submission in SOEPpapers is made by a board of editors chosen by the DIW Berlin to represent the wide range of disciplines covered by SOEP. There is no external referee process and papers are either accepted or rejected without revision. Papers appear in this series as works in progress and may also appear elsewhere. They often represent preliminary studies and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be requested from the author directly. It focuses in particular on gender segregation in the labor market, that is, on the unequal distribution of women and men across different occupations and on the effects of this inequality on earnings levels and gender wage differentials in management positions. Our paper is, to our knowledge, the first in Germany to use time-constant unobserved heterogeneity and gender-specific promotion probabilities to estimate wages and wage differentials for persons in managerial positions. The results of the fixed effects model show that working in a more "female" job, as opposed to a more "male" job, affects only women's wages negatively. This result remains stable after controlling for human capital endowments and other effects. Mechanisms of the devaluation of jobs not primarily held by men also negatively affect pay in management positions (evaluative discrimination) and are even more severe for women (allocative discrimination). However, the effect is not linear; the wage penalties for women occur only in "integrated" (more equally male/female) jobs as opposed to typically male jobs, and not in typically female jobs. The devaluation of occupations that are not primarily held by men becomes even more evident when promotion probabilities are taken into account. An Oaxaca/Blinder decomposition of the wage differential between men and women in manage...

The Gender Wage Gap in Switzerland over Time

“…From the beginning of someone's career, there is some kind of gender-specific self-selection process because women and men have heterogeneous tastes for jobs. Women with family intentions might, for example, invest less in human capital, when long working breaks are scheduled (Achatz et al 2004;Busch and Holst 2011). They might also choose jobs that can be easily combined with family life, such as part-time jobs, jobs close to the nursery and jobs with a high starting wage but smaller returns to experience (Achatz et al 2004;Finzi 2007).…”

“…Limited job selection can create occupational segregation, meaning the concentration of men and women in different job categories. The findings in the literature show that the higher the share of women in a certain job sector, the lower the overall wage (e. g., Treiman and Hartmann 1981;England et al 1988;Busch and Holst 2011;Busch 2013). Bertschy et al (2014) found for Switzerland that women earn on average the highest salary in typically female job sectors and less in equally shared or male-dominated job sectors, but less than men in general, regardless of the job sector.…”

Occupational segregation and gender differentials in earnings in Macedonia

“…The fraction of the observed gender pay gap explained by occupational segregation varies a lot across studies and countries. The gender share in occupation variable explained between 7 percent and 32 percent of the observed pay gap in the studies on the United States, about 25 percent in the cross-country study on EU-12 countries (European Commission 2002), as much as 50-56 percent in Greece (Karamessini and Ioakimoglu 2007), and as little as 3 percent in Germany (Busch and Holst 2011).…”

“…These studies confirm that earnings of both women and men are lower in female-dominated occupations. While a majority of the studies show that the negative effect of working in female-dominated occupations on earnings is much more pronounced for women, studies by Johnson and Salon (1986) and Sorensen (1990) for the United States and Busch and Holst (2011) for Germany found that the negative effect was stronger for men. In Macpherson and Hirsch's (1995) study for the United States, the effect of gender composition on earnings was of similar magnitude for women and men.…”

“…Notable econometric studies on the role and contribution of gender share in occupation on earnings include Bayard et al (2003), Boraas and Rodgers III (2003), Johnson and Solon (1986), Kilbourne et al (1994), Macpherson and Hirsch (1995), and Sorensen (1990) for the United States; Busch and Holst (2011) for Germany; Campos and Ropero (2011) for Spain; European Commission (2002) for a pooled sample of EU-12 countries; Jurajda (2003) for the Czech and Slovak Republics; Karamessini and Ioakimoglou (2007) for Greece ;and Ogloblin (1999) for Russia. These studies confirm that earnings of both women and men are lower in female-dominated occupations.…”