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Does Rosie Like Riveting? Male and Female Occupational Choices

Author

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  • Grace Lordan
  • Jörn‐Steffen Pischke
Abstract
Occupational segregation and pay gaps by gender remain large, while many of the constraints traditionally believed to be responsible for these gaps seem to have weakened over time. We explore the possibility that women and men have different tastes for the content of the work that they do. We relate job satisfaction and job mobility to measures that proxy for the content of the work in an occupation, which we label ‘people’, ‘brains’ and ‘brawn’. The results suggest that women value jobs high on ‘people’ content and low on ‘brawn’. Men care about job content in a similar fashion, but have much weaker preferences. High school students show similar preferences in a discrete choice experiment and indicate that they make their choices based mainly on preferences for the work itself. We argue that the more pronounced preferences of women can account for occupational sorting, which often leads them into careers with large pay penalties for interruptions due to childbearing.

Suggested Citation

  • Grace Lordan & Jörn‐Steffen Pischke, 2022. "Does Rosie Like Riveting? Male and Female Occupational Choices," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 89(353), pages 110-130, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:econom:v:89:y:2022:i:353:p:110-130
    DOI: 10.1111/ecca.12390
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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J4 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets

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