The Gender Gap in Company Job Training

Abstract

Previous analyses of employee participation in company-provided job training programs, using cross-sectional data on cumulative incidence levels, found either that men receive more training than women or no significant gender differences. The authors conducted event-history analyses of the hazard rate of entry into initial firm training programs by a national cohort of young workers. Rather than closing the gender gap, the women's training disadvantage widened after controlling for theoretically important human capital, occupational, industrial, organizational, and family-stage variables. Further examination of women's and men's distributions on these independent variables and estimates of separate event-history equations suggest that gender segregation by occupation and industry, workweek length, and family role obligations afford men better training opportunities than women. The authors conclude with suggestions for future research and speculations about the policy implications for closing the persistent gender gap in company-provided job training.