Workforce Segregation and the Gender Wage Gap: Is “Women's” Work Valued as Highly as “Men's”?¹

Abstract

This study focuses on gender segregation and its implications for the salaries assigned to male‐ and female‐typed jobs. We used a between‐subjects design to examine whether participants would assign different pay to 3 types of jobs wherein the actual responsibilities and duties carried out by men and women were the same, but the job was situated in either a traditionally masculine or traditionally feminine domain. We found pay differentials between jobs defined as “male” and “female,” which suggest that gender‐based discrimination, arising from occupational stereotyping and the devaluation of the work typically done by women, influences salary allocation. The ways in which the results fit with contemporary theorizing about sexism and with the shifting standards model (Biernat, 1995, 2003) are discussed.

Men and Women at Work: The Effects of Objectification on Competence, Pay, and Fit for the Job

“…Moreover, we expected that men are attributed a higher pay than women (Hypothesis 3) (Alksnis et al, 2008), whereas no specific predictions were made regarding the role played by objectification.…”

“…In the occupational domain, stereotypes about women's competence combine with stereotypes about women's cognitive and personality characteristics to influence the perception of the type of jobs that women are capable of doing (Alksnis, Desmarais, & Curtis, 2008;Athey & Hautaluoma, 1994;Martin, 1992;Curşeu & Boroş, 2008).…”

“…Stereotypes about women and a different evaluation of masculine and feminine jobs contribute to the gender wage gap, whereby the female-male pay difference continues to be substantial in most countries (Alksnis et al, 2008). A large body of research has studied the effect of gender on pay (i.e.…”

Szacunki luki płacowej w Polsce w ujęciu regionalnym

“…Może ona przybierać dwie formy. Horyzontalna segregacja polega na nadreprezentacji kobiet w zawodach typowo kobiecych, najczęściej słabo opłacanych i niedowartościo-wanych [Alksnis, Desmarais, Curtis, 2008] (np. pielęgniarki).…”

Emotional labor in a gendered occupation : the work of a female funeral director.

“…It is widely accepted that feminine typed-work is devalued in comparison to maletyped work (Levanon, England, and Allison, 2009;Alksins, Desmarais, and Curtis, 2008;Sweet and Meiksins, 2008) and that female dominated jobs generally have less paths of upward mobility and wage increases (Charles and Grusky, 2004). From this, it could be argued that the occupations that have been researched in studies of emotional labor, such as flight attendants and restaurant servers, may have consequences that are not necessarily unique to the performance of emotional labor, but rather a part of the penalties associated with women's work more generally.…”