Female-dominated Jobs Research Articles

Wage structure analysis: An empirical approach to pay equity in segregated jobs

The job attributes, seniority, and pay of county employees in 64 male- vs. 120 female-dominated jobs were analyzed to distinguish wage inequity from mere wage disparity. Using 11 different criteria, independent rates evaluated 300-to 500- word descriptions of each of 184 jobs. Means on the five most reliable job attributes for each job type were compared. Regressions of actual pay on worker and job attributes revealed multipleRs of .84 and .70, respectively, for male-dominated vs. female-dominated jobs, with sex of worker contributing significantly to both. Structural equations models were fit separately to the two job types, using job attributes and seniority of 1644 workers as predictors of pay. For the male-dominated jobs, a 2-factor structure provided the best fit to the data. A 3-factor structure was needed to predict the pay in female-dominated jobs. Implications of these differences in the wage structures for the two families of jobs are discussed.

The Use of Job Evaluation to Eliminate Gender Based Pay Differentials

The comparable worth issue has placed considerable emphasis on the use of job evaluation in eliminating gender based pay differentials. Specifically the reliability and validity of job evaluation, especially generic forms of job evaluation, have been questioned. This study examines the process of comparable worth determination. Job evaluations were performed on a set of male-dominated and female-dominated job descriptions using both the MIMA system and Factor Evaluation system (FES). Estimates of reliability and convergence were calculated. The resultant salaries, calculated using five different approaches to worth computation, were also compared. The results indicate that the generic FES is as reliable as the job family based MIMA system of job evaluation. The FES shows strong convergence with the MIMA system as well as to market pay rates and present salaries.

Compensating Differentials and the Male-Female Wage Gap: Evidence from the New York State Comparable Worth Study

This article examines whether women are paid less than men because female-dominated jobs are characterized by more favorable working conditions than jobs dominated by men. We review evidence about whether differences in working conditions are responsible for a portion of the sex gap in wages, including pertinent data from a number of comparable worth studies. The heart of the article is an analysis of data on over 1,600 jobs in the New York State Civil Service System. Fourteen job-content indicators and 15 measures of working conditions are examined. Ourfindings are inconsistent with the expectations of the compensating differentials hypothesis. Prominent results include (1) both maleandfemale-dominated jobs are disadvantaged on a similar number of working-conditions indicators; (2) in general, neither men nor women receive wage premiums for working in unfavorable conditions, once other compensable characteristics are taken into account; (3) if female-dominated jobs had the same working conditions that characterize white male-dominated jobs, the sex gap in wages would grow slightly; and (4) femaledominated jobs would slightly improve their relative position if all wage penalties associated with working conditions were assigned a zero score. A power-based model of intraorganizational wage determination is discussed as an alternative to the neoclassical economic paradigm.

Measuring the Pay Disparity between Typically Female Occupations and other Jobs: A Bivariate Selectivity Approach

The author of this study, using a bivariate probit selectivity model with data from the 1984 Panel Survey of Income Dynamics, finds that women in female-dominated jobs earned 6–15 percent less than women with the same characteristics in other occupations. These results support the crowding hypothesis, according to which women are crowded into “female jobs” because of employer discrimination, resulting in lower wages for those jobs. Previous studies, using ordinary least squares analysis, have found a higher earnings differential; but most of those studies, unlike the present one, failed to control either for individuals' decision whether or not to work or for their choice of occupation.

Reliability of job evaluation: Differences across sex-typed jobs

Recent work has questioned whether a single job evaluation instrument can reliably measure jobs from different job families. To test this, a generalizability study was done to determine the reliability of three job evaluation instruments: one for male-dominated jobs, MIMA-Shop, one for female-dominated jobs, MIMA-office and one which evaluated both types, FES. Initial results indicated that the latter instrument suffered no loss in reliability, and that all three instruments were equally highly reliable. A second analysis evaluated the reliability of the FES for male-dominated jobs separately from the reliability of the FES for female-dominated jobs. These results indicated no significant difference in reliability for male-dominated jobs and for female-dominated jobs. Implications of these findings were discussed.

Comparable Worth: Limited Coverage and the Exacerbation of Inequality

Citing relevant judicial decisions, the author argues that any application of the comparable worth remedy for gender discrimination is likely to cover only certain groups of workers. Most likely to be covered are women who work for governmental or large private employers in female-dominated jobs, and least likely to be covered are women who work for small private employers. The implementation of comparable worth would cause the wages of noncovered workers to fall relative to those of covered workers, and they might even fall absolutely. An analysis of 1979 Current Population Survey data suggests that the women most likely to gain from comparable worth are fewer in number, better paid, and subjected to no greater discrimination than the women most likely to lose.

The Minnesota Pay Equity Bills: Increasing Wages for Women Workers

When I first discovered that the state of Minnesota had passed a pay equity bill, I was intrigued and inspired to learn more. I felt that the concept of pay equity, or comparable worth, had revolutionary implications, and I was amazed that even a liberal state like Minnesota would pass legislation mandating equal pay for comparable work for its employees. I told my professors that I wanted to write a paper investigating the context in which such a radical bill had been passed. They warned me that I would find very little radical intent, and very little interest in fundamental questions about labor market discrimination, on the part of the Minnesota state legislature. They were, of course, right; as this paper attempts to show, the Minnesota debate over comparable worth did not signify great strides in the feminist movement or in economic theory. The concept of comparable worth does raise fundamental questions about the (capitalist) economic system in the United States and the role of gender oppression in that system, but the Minnesota debate avoided many of these questions. As a result, the Minnesota bill has made concrete and significant changes in the lives of many women, but has fallen far short of a radical measure challenging the devaluation of women's work and the accompanying low wages received by women in traditionally female jobs. Economists have identified and studied occupational segregation and the wage gap for many years, particularly since the increase in labor supply (mostly white married women entering the labor market) after World War II. Politicians have become more concerned because of the increased significance of women as a political constituency. Public interest groups and the press have contributed to this attention to women with their recent focus on the gender gap and the feminization of poverty. It is possible and even common for a head of household to work full time and still be below the poverty line. According to the 1984 U.S. census, 47 percent of femaleheaded households were below the poverty level. In more than 20 percent of these impoverished households, the woman worked full time. Pay equity legislation has been one way of responding to these concerns, since it aims to increase pay for women in female-dominated jobs. In 1982 the Minnesota state legislature passed a bill mandating pay equity for its own employees; in 1984 it passed a second bill mandating pay equity for local government employees. Thus, comparable worth is currently being implemented in state and local government, including counties, cities, and school districts. For the state bill, a centralized wage negotiation process and the involvement of a strong union have ensured a consistent implementation, with substantial gains for women in female-dominated job categories. On the local level, the absence of these elements has resulted in a less consistent, less advantageous implementation of a bill that was framed in vague terms to begin with, because of certain political constraints.

A Pay Equity Analysis of Female-Dominated and Disproportionately Minority New York State Job Titles

A Pay Equity Analysis of Female-Dominated and Disproportionately Minority New York State Job Titles

Occupational sex segregation and job satisfaction of women

The results of this study indicate wide variation in the effect of occupational sex segregation on the job satisfaction of women college graduates employed in public and private organizations. Women employed in sex-balanced and male- and female-dominated occupations in the public sector have comparable levels of job satisfaction. In private firms, however, women college graduates employed in sex-balanced careers are more satisfied with theintrinsic andoverall nature of their jobs than those employed in female-dominated occupations, and those in female-dominated jobs are more satisfied with theextrinsic nature of their careers than women in male-dominated jobs. The implications of these findings for those who conduct research on the career consequences of women employed in sex-dominated career fields and for college officials responsible for the educational and professional development of women college students are discussed.

The sex gap in work and wages

B etween 1950 and 1980 the proportion of women in the paid labor force rose dramatically, from 28 percent to 51 percent. In the 1950s the increase came mostly from women over thirty-five returning to jobs when their children were older. The 1960s and 1970s brought unabated increases for women of all ages, but especially for married women with children. By 1980, 45 percent of married women with children under six and 41 percent of those with children under three were in the labor force. Yet most women still work in female-dominated jobs. Associated with this segregation has been a nearly constant sex gap in wages. Women who work full time all year earn about 60 percent of what is earned by men who work full time. I shall provide an overview of research from sociology, economics, and psychology that explains the persistence of job segregation and the sex gap in earnings.

The “feminine mystique” in male-dominated jobs: A comparison of attitudes and background factors of women in male-dominated versus female-dominated jobs

This paper examines various background factors plus success and work-related atttudes of 324 women as aggregated into one of three groups: those women working in male-dominated jobs, those in female-dominated jobs, and those in relatively sex-ratio balanced jobs. Overall results show that women holding male-dominated jobs are more likely to be older, better educated, have fathers with higher educational levels, and are more likely to be childless as compared to women in female-dominated jobs. Holding age and education constant, women in male-dominated jobs usually rated definitions of success as more important to their feelings of well-being than did women in female-dominated jobs. With these same constants, there were few differences in work attitudes among the three groups, but contrary to expectations, women in female-dominated jobs rated the importance of their work higher than did women in male-dominated jobs. The variables best predicting whether a woman held a male-dominated job were college attainment, problems related to sex discrimination, the age of the participant, her feelings toward achieving a very high salary, her feelings of the importance of her work, and her feelings about becoming an authority in her job.

Labor as a Quasi-Fixed Factor

T HE cyclical behavior of labor markets reveals a number of puzzling features for which there are no truly satisfying explanations. Included among these are (1) occupational differences in the stability of employment and earnings, (2) the uneven incidence of unemployment, (3) the persistence of differential labor turnover rates, and (4) discriminatory hiring and firing policies. I believe that the major impediment to rational explanations for these phenomena lies in the classical treatment of labor as a purely variable factor. In this paper I propose a short-run theory of employment which rests on the premise that labor is a quasi-fixed factor. The fixed employment costs arise from investments by firms in hiring and training activities. The theory of labor as a quasi-fixed factor is developed in Part I. In Part II, the implications of this theory are subjected to various empirical tests. Finally, Part III turns to an examination of alternative theories and an extension of my theory to a theory of occupational wage differentials. The concept of labor as a quasi-fixed factor is, in my opinion, the relevant one for a short-run theory of employment. Its implications are amenable to empirical verification and are, in the main,