nach oben

Social Indicators Research

Erschienen in:

01.09.2009

Domestic Supply, Job-Specialization and Sex-differences in Pay

verfasst von: Javier G. Polavieja

Erschienen in: Social Indicators Research | Ausgabe 3/2009

Einloggen

Aktivieren Sie unsere intelligente Suche, um passende Fachinhalte oder Patente zu finden.

search-config

KI-gestützte Suche

Aus

Abstract

This article proposes an explanation of sex-differences in job-allocation and pay in different institutional contexts. Job-allocation calculations are considered to be related to (1) the distribution of housework and (2) the skill-specialization requirements of jobs. In a context of uncertainty and imperfect information, housework and job-specialization requirements generate a particular incentive structure for each sex. This incentive structure can, however, be altered by governmental action. Welfare policies and services are expected to affect allocation decisions at the micro-level both by reducing the risks of skill-depreciation for women as well as by increasing their intra-household bargaining power. Both effects combined should reduce the economic pay-offs of “traditional” sphere-specialization by sex. This model is tested using a sub-sample of married and cohabiting employees drawn for the second round of the European Social Survey. Results based on nested random-intercept regressions show that sex-differences in job-specialization and housework can explain the wage effects of occupational sex-composition and have a significant direct impact on hourly earnings. Welfare-regime interactions also suggest that the association between housework and earnings is much weaker in societies displaying high levels of defamilialization and decommodification.

Vorheriger Artikel Sacrificing Their Careers for Their Families? An Analysis of the Penalty to Motherhood in Europe

Sie haben noch keine Lizenz? Dann Informieren Sie sich jetzt über unsere Produkte:

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

über 102.000 Bücher
über 537 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

Automobil + Motoren
Bauwesen + Immobilien
Business IT + Informatik
Elektrotechnik + Elektronik
Energie + Nachhaltigkeit
Finance + Banking
Management + Führung
Marketing + Vertrieb
Maschinenbau + Werkstoffe
Versicherung + Risiko

Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

Jetzt informieren

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

über 67.000 Bücher
über 340 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

Bauwesen + Immobilien
Business IT + Informatik
Finance + Banking
Management + Führung
Marketing + Vertrieb
Versicherung + Risiko

Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

Jetzt informieren

There is mounting evidence that employers are very often willing to pay for skills that can be easily transferred to other firms, which contradicts the predictions of standard human capital theory (see Becker 1993[1964]). New training models explain this finding by arguing that the wage returns for workers of training in transferable skills may be less than the productivity returns for employers when markets are imperfect (see, e.g. Acemoglu and Pischke 1999).

Training does not need to be explicit but take the form of learning-by-doing on the job.

Note that even if nominal earnings are higher in H at all levels of tenure, the ratio wages/effort will be higher in the early stages of L-type jobs because skill-investments require effort. Note also that if it is further assumed that women “use up” more effort than men in housework activities and hence dispose of less effort to put forth, the pay-offs of L-type jobs at early stages will be even greater for women. Introducing effort clarifies the incentive properties of the different jobs and facilitates the connection between housework and labor market allocation choices.

This follows from Beker’s theory of the allocation of effort, which states that effort is in limited supply and positively correlated with productivity in the job. Hence housework supply reduces the available “stock” of effort which will lead to lower productivity and lower earnings (see Becker 1985).

Scandinavian countries also provide long and generous parental leave. Parental leave policies might deter employers’ investments in job-specific skills and hence hinder women’s career progression (see, e.g. Rønsen and Sundström 2002), from which earning consequences should follow (Mandel and Semyonov 2005). Yet when assessing the overall welfare effect of the Scandinavian model, one should consider not only the direct defamializing impact of public childcare but also the indirect defamializing effects of decommodification. Both effects combined are expected to offset the possibly negative consequences of generous parental leave.

The existing comparative evidence shows indeed that Scandinavian societies display the most equalitarian distribution of housework amongst spouses (see e.g. Batalova and Cohen 2002; Evertsson and Nermo 2004; Fuwa 2004; Geist 2005).

The ESS includes two other indicators that could, in principle, be relevant to job-specialization: (1) self-assessed difficulty of getting a similar or better job with another employer, and (2) difficulty to employer of replacing the respondent (as assessed by the latter). Yet these two indicators correlate very poorly with each other, as well as with job-learning time, and they show an equally poor performance in wage equations. This raises serious doubts as to their actual validity as indicators of job-specialization. Given these problems, I use only job-learning time as a measure of job-specialization. This approach is in accordance with the literature (see Tam 1997).

Mandel and Semyonov (2005) argue that the lower earning differentials between men and women found in highly developed welfare states are actually attributable to the more egalitarian wage structures that characterizes these countries rather than to their family policies. Controlling for wage compression will therefore tend to isolate the defamilialization and decommodification mechanisms discussed above from the possible effects of wage equalization. Yet it must be recognized that wage compression could itself be interpreted as another welfare effect that further equalizes intra-household bargaining-power. Under this latter light, controls for wage compression could be interpreted as unnecessary.

Tests not reported in Table 3 show that, although attitudinal controls and housework indicators also produce a notable reduction in the sex-composition coefficient, job-specialization is the only variable that can absorb all its statistical impact on earnings.

Interactions between the social ambition index and respondents’ sex have been tested and rejected.

This has not been possible at this stage of research as the statistical offices of several of the countries analyzed in this study only provide occupational information at a very high level of aggregation so that the benefits of using large national samples as the basis for calculation are currently offset by the costs of having very poor occupational information. It is hoped that forthcoming datasets such as the harmonized European Labor Force Survey can overcome this problem.

Acemoglu, D., & Pischke, J. S. (1998). Why do firms train? Theory and evidence. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 113, 79–119.CrossRef

Acemoglu, D., & Pischke, J. S. (1999). Beyond Becker: Training in imperfect labor markets. Economic Journal, 109, F112–F142.CrossRef

Batalova, J. A., & Cohen, P. N. (2002). Premarital cohabitation and housework: Couples in cross-national perspective. Journal of Marriage and Family, 64, 743–755.CrossRef

Becker, G. S. (1985). Human capital, effort and the sexual division of labor. Journal of Labor Economics, 3, S33–S58.CrossRef

Becker, G. S. (1993) [1964]. Human capital. New York: Columbia University Press.

Bittman, M., England, P., Sayer, L., Folbre, N., & Matheson, G. (2003). When does gender trump money? Bargaining and time in household work. American Journal of Sociology, 109, 186–214.CrossRef

Blau, F. D., & Kahn, L. M. (2000). Gender differences in pay. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 14, 75–99.CrossRef

Boraas, S., & Rodger, W. M. (2003). How does gender play a role in the earnings gap? An update. Monthly Labor Review, 126, 9–15.

Breen, R. (1997). Risk, recommodification and stratification. Sociology, 31, 473–489.CrossRef

Ermisch, J. (2003). An economic analysis of the family. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Esping-Andersen, G. (1990). The three worlds of welfare capitalism. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Esping-Andersen, G. (1999). Social foundations of postindustrial economies. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRef

Estevez-Abe, M. (2005). Gender bias in skills and social policies: The varieties of capitalism perspective on sex segregation. Social Politics, 12, 180–215.

Evertsson, M., & Nermo, M. (2004). Dependence within families and the division of labor: Comparing Sweden and the United States. Journal of Marriage and Family, 66, 1272–1286.CrossRef

Fuwa, M. (2004). Macro-level gender inequality and the division of household labor in 22 countries. American Sociological Review, 69, 751–767.

Geist, C. (2005). The welfare state and the home: Regime difference in the domestic division of labour. European Sociological Review, 21, 23–41.CrossRef

Goldthorpe, J. (2000). On sociology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Halaby, C. N. (2004). Panel models in sociological research: Theory into practice. Annual Review of Sociology, 30, 507–544.CrossRef

Hantrais, L. (2004). Family policy matters. Bristol: Policy Press.

Hersch, J., & Stratton, L. S. (1997). Housework, fixed effects and wages of married workers. Journal of Human Resources, 32, 285–307.CrossRef

Lazear, E. P. (1995). Personnel economics. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

Lewis, J. (1992). Gender and the development of welfare regimes. London: Jessica Kingsley Publisher.

Lister, R. (1994). She has other duties: Women, citizenship and social security. In S. Baldwin & J. Falkingham (Eds.), Social security and social change (pp. 31–44). New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf.

Loewenstein, M. A., & Spletzer, J. R. (1998). Dividing the costs and returns to general training. Journal of Labor Economics, 16, 142–171.CrossRef

Mandel, H., & Semyonov, M. (2005). Family policies, wage structures, and gender gaps: Sources of earnings inequality in 20 countries. American Sociological Review, 70, 949–967.CrossRef

Meyersson-Milgrom, E., Petersen, M. T., & Snartland, V. (2001). Equal pay for equal work?: Evidence from Sweden and comparison with Norway and the U.S. Scandinavian Journal of Economics, 103, 559–583.CrossRef

O’Connor, J. S. (1993). Gender, class and citizenship in the comparative analysis of welfare regimes: Theoretical and methodological issues. The British Journal of Sociology, 44, 501–518.CrossRef

Orloff, A. (1993). Gender and the social rights of citizenship: The comparative analysis of gender relations and welfare states. American Sociological Review, 22, 51–78.

Petersen, T., Snartland, V., Becken, L. E., & Olsen, K. M. (1997). Within-job wage discrimination and the gender wage gap: The case of Norway. European Sociological Review, 13, 199–213.

Polavieja, J. G. (2005). Task specificity and the gender wage gap: Theoretical considerations and empirical analysis of the Spanish survey on wage structure. European Sociological Review, 21, 165–181.CrossRef

Polavieja, J. G. (2007). Occupational sex-composition and earnings: Individual and societal effects. DemoSoc Working Paper, 2007-22. Barcelona: Department of Political and Social Sciences, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.

Polavieja, J. G. (2008a). The effect of occupational sex-composition on earnings: Job-specialization, sex-role attitudes and the division of domestic labour in Spain. European Sociological Review, 24, 199–213.CrossRef

Polavieja, J. G. (2008b). Sex-differences in job-allocation: What drives women’s investments in their Jobs?. Estudio/Working Paper, 2008/239. Madrid: Juan March Institute of Study and Research.

Rønsen, M., & Sundström, M. (2002). Family policy and after-birth employment among new mothers: A comparison of Finland, Norway and Sweden. European Journal of Population, 18, 121–152.

Snijders, T. A. B., & Bosker, R. J. (1999). Multilevel analysis: An introduction to basic and advanced multilevel modelling. London: Sage Publications.

Sorensen, A. B. (1994). Firms, wages and incentives. In N. J. Smelser & R. Swedberg (Eds.), The handbook of economic sociology (pp. 504–528). Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Sorensen, A. B. (2000). Toward a sounder basis for class analysis. American Journal of Sociology, 105, 1523–1558.CrossRef

Stratton, L. S. (2001). Why does more housework lower women’s wages? Testing hypotheses involving job effort and hours flexibility. Social Science Quarterly, 82, 67–76.CrossRef

Tam, T. (1997). Sex segregation and occupational gender inequality in the United States: Devaluation or specialized training? American Journal of Sociology, 102, 1652–1692.CrossRef

Williamson, O. E. (1985). The economic institutions of capitalism. New York: Free Press.

Titel: Domestic Supply, Job-Specialization and Sex-differences in Pay
verfasst von: Javier G. Polavieja
Publikationsdatum: 01.09.2009
Verlag: Springer Netherlands
Erschienen in: Social Indicators Research / Ausgabe 3/2009
Print ISSN: 0303-8300
Elektronische ISSN: 1573-0921
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-008-9430-5

Springer Professional

Abstract

Bitte loggen Sie sich ein, um Zugang zu Ihrer Lizenz zu erhalten.

Sie haben noch keine Lizenz? Dann Informieren Sie sich jetzt über unsere Produkte:

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik"

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

Weitere Artikel der Ausgabe 3/2009

Comparing Work-Life Conflict in Europe: Evidence from the European Social Survey

The Effect of Union Type on Work-Life Conflict in Five European Countries

Reported Levels of Time-based and Strain-based Conflict Between Work and Family Roles in Europe: A Multilevel Approach

Work-Family Conflict and Working Conditions in Western Europe

Work-Life Conflict and Social Inequality in Western Europe

Relatively Different? How do Gender Differences in Well-Being Depend on Paid and Unpaid Work in Europe?

Premium Partner