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Gender Differences in Careers and Pay

Paper Session

Monday, Jan. 4, 2021 3:45 PM - 5:45 PM (EST)

Hosted By: American Economic Association
  • Chair: Marianne Bertrand, University of Chicago

The Impact of the 1963 Equal Pay Act on the Gender Gap

Martha Bailey
,
University of California-Los Angeles
Thomas Helgerman
,
University of Michigan
Bryan Stuart
,
George Washington University

Abstract

The 1963 Equal Pay Act mandated equal pay for equal work for individuals covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act. Drawing on an empirical strategy used in the minimum wage literature, we exploit variation in the “bite” of the Act due to the pre-existing gender pay gap in the same occupation, industry, and Census region. Consistent with the Equal Pay Act binding, the results show that women’s wages increased more sharply in more affected jobs after implementation. However, women in more affected jobs also experienced substantially larger employment reductions by 1970. The resulting reshuffling of women from higher wage (and higher gender gap) jobs to lower paying (and lower gender gap) jobs offset women’s aggregate wage gains entirely. The result was negligible changes in the aggregate gender gap during the 1960s.

Coordinated Work Schedules and the Gender Wage Gap

Chinhui Juhn
,
University of Houston
German Cubas
,
University of Houston
Pedro Silos
,
Temple University

Abstract

Using U.S. time diary data we construct occupation-level measures of coordinated work schedules based on the concentration of hours worked during peak hours of the day. A higher degree of coordination is associated with higher wages but also a larger gender wage gap. In the data women with children allocate more time to household care and are penalized by missing work during peak hours. An equilibrium model with these key elements generates a gender wage gap of 6.6 percent or approximately 30 percent of the wage gap observed among married men and women with children. If the need for coordination is equalized across occupations and set to a relatively low value (i.e. Health care support), the gender gap would fall by more than half to 2.7 percent.

Long-Run Effects of Incentivizing Work After Childbirth

Na'ama Shenhav
,
Dartmouth College
Elira Kuka
,
George Washington University

Abstract

This paper uses a panel of SSA earnings linked to the CPS to estimate the impact of increasing post-childbirth work incentives on mothers' long-run career trajectories. We implement a novel research design that exploits variation in the timing of the 1993 reform of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) around a woman's first birth and in eligibility for the credit. We find that single mothers exposed to the expansion immediately after a first birth ("early-exposed") have 3 to 4 p.p. higher employment in the five years after a first birth than single mothers exposed 3 to 6 years after a first birth ("late-exposed"). Ten to nineteen years after a first birth, early-exposed mothers have the same employment and hours as late-exposed mothers, but have accrued at least 0.5 to 0.6 more years of work experience and have 4.2 percent higher earnings conditional on working. We provide suggestive evidence that these higher earnings are primarily explained by the increase in work experience, rather than a change in marriage, fertility, or occupation. Our results suggest that there are steep returns to work incentives at childbirth that accumulate over the life-cycle.

Informed Choices: Gender Gaps in Career Advice

Melanie Wasserman
,
University of California-Los Angeles
Yana Gallen
,
University of Chicago

Abstract

This paper investigates gender differences in access to informal information regarding the labor market. We focus on U.S. college students seeking information from professionals about careers. Using detailed data on interpersonal interactions from an online mentoring platform, we document new empirical facts regarding information exchange. We find that male and female students use similar approaches to information gathering; they send the same number of messages and ask questions on the same topics. There are substantial gender differences, however, in whom students contact. Female students are 12 percentage points (28 percent) more likely to reach out to a female professional relative to male students. Using a survey-based preference elicitation, we find that female students are willing to trade off valuable mentor attributes (e.g. occupation match, availability, network thickness) in order to access a mentor of the same gender. In an ongoing field experiment, we isolate the causal effect of student gender on the content of career information provided by professionals. We combine the results of the field experiment with student preferences for professionals to determine whether average gender bias in information provision is amplified or attenuated by student selection of whom to contact for information.
Discussant(s)
Hilary Hoynes
,
University of California-Berkeley
Patricia Cortes
,
Boston University
Christine Exley
,
Harvard University
Linh Tô
,
Boston University
JEL Classifications
  • J3 - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs
  • J7 - Labor Discrimination