Occupational gender segregation and economic growth in U.S. local labor markets, 1980 through 2010.

William J Scarborough,Shihe Fu

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0227615

Abstract

The exchange of diverse ideas has been shown to be a major driver of economic growth and innovation in local labor markets across the U.S. Yet, persistently high levels of occupational gender segregation pose a barrier to such exchange between women and men workers. Consistent with this, organizational sociologists have identified multiple economic benefits to gender diversity in workplaces. Yet, it is unclear whether these trends apply to local labor markets, which constitute the ecological geographic environment for firms. In this study, I use fixed effects regression models to examine the relationship between labor market levels of segregation and economic growth from 1980 through 2010. I find that gender segregation hinders the expansion of finance and technology sectors as two industries that rely on the exchange of information and innovation. Consequently, higher levels of gender segregation are also a bane to economic productivity, as measured through hourly wages. Results from this study suggest that gender equity, manifested in lower levels of occupational segregation, is a vital ingredient in the economic development of local U.S. labor markets.

Highlights

Voluminous studies have explored the determinants of occupational gender segregation [1,2,3,4,5,6]
The coefficients remain significant and substantial. While these results indicate that gender segregation plays a large role in shaping the type of industry growth taking place in U.S local labor markets, they provide little information on the quality of those economic developments and whether they improve productivity
The findings for the pooled model indicate that sector expansion is more strongly associated with wage growth in highly segregated labor markets than those with lower levels of occupational gender segregation (p < .001). While these findings are counter to Hypothesis 3, they should be interpreted with caution because the pooled model does not control for the varying effects of control variables across industries or Sector Characteristics Occupational Gender Segregation % Employed in Sector Gender Segregation % Employed in Sector Occupational Racial Segregation % College Educated % Women % White

Summary

Introduction

Voluminous studies have explored the determinants of occupational gender segregation [1,2,3,4,5,6]. In testing the effects of gender segregation, I expect that higher occupational gender segregation will be related to diminished wage growth in finance and tech industries because it poses a barrier to the exchange of information and ideas that are key ingredients for economic productivity in these high-skill service sectors [30,31,32,33,34,35,36]. The hypotheses outlined above propose that decreasing occupational gender segregation will be associated with finance and tech sector growth as well as improved productivity measured through wages To test this relationship, I use fixed effects regression equations modelling the relationship between concurrent change in gender segregation and economic outcomes from 1980 through 2010. In the last section of the results, I test whether occupational gender segregation is related to economic productivity, as measured by hourly wages in FIRE, tech, and retail trade industries

Results

Summary of results

Result

Discussion

Limitations and future directions

Conclusion