Occupational Feminization Research Articles

The Effect of Occupational Feminization on the Returns to Education

This study explores whether workers in female-dominated occupations have lower returns to schooling than workers in integrated or male-dominated occupations. Our analysis of 2023 CPS earnings data for year-round full-time workers indicates that the earnings benefits to additional schooling decline as the female density of occupations increases. This finding is consistent with the occupational feminization literature. However, we also find that females have higher returns to schooling than males in integrated and male-dominated occupational categories. Overall, women have achieved the highest labor market success in terms of returns to schooling in male-dominant occupations.

Occupational feminization, gender, and wages: evidence from Thailand

This study examines the relationship between occupational feminization and wages in Thailand using the Thailand Labor Force Survey data (LFS) (2008-2017). Employing the Augmented Inverse Probability Weighting (AIPW) and the Inverse Probability Weighted Regression Adjustment (IPWRA) double robust matching techniques, this study investigates the effects of occupational feminization and the interaction effect of occupational feminization and gender on wages. The findings indicate that occupational feminization decreased wages in Thailand, and the negative effect weakened over time. While the gender wage gap persisted in feminized occupations over the years, there was a reduction in the gender wage gap in non-feminized occupations. The wage gap between females in feminized occupations and males in non-feminized occupations decreased over time, even though it remained larger than the overall gender wage gap. Male workers continued to take advantage and ride the “glass escalator” in both feminized and non-feminized occupations.

Occupational Feminization and Pay: The Case of Brazil

The sex wage gap is widely documented in the literature. Although several theories emerged to explain it, the devaluation and queuing views have been dominant due to women’s concentration in lower-paying occupations. They differ in the direction of thecausal effect: while the devaluation theory predicts lower wages for higher occupation’s female share, the queuing theory predicts causal effect in the opposite direction. No studies to support these theories have been found for developing countries and this paper aims to test them for Brazil. Using Censuses data, three results emerge: 1) negative correlation between sex composition and wages; 2) no evidence to support neither theory; 3) some evidence to support another view: the theory of equalizing differences. This last theory predicts no causal relationship between the occupational share of females and wages because wage differentials would emerge from human capital differences and the value attributed to jobs’ non-monetary advantages.

When Pay Equity Policy Is not Enough: Persistence of the Gender Wage Gap Among Health, Education, and STEM Professionals in Canada, 2006‒2016

This study examines gender, geographic, and earnings inequalities within and across 13 health, education, and STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics and computer science) professions in Canada. Data from the 2006 and 2016 population censuses were pooled and linked to a continuous geospatial remoteness index for assessing trends in occupational feminization and associated employment earnings among degree-holding professionals aged 25–54. Linear regression and Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition methods were used to analyze how personal, professional, and socioenvironmental factors may attenuate or magnify wage differentials by sex. Results show the STEM professions tended to remain male-dominated, heavily urbanized, and subject to significantly lower earnings for women compared to men. Other historically female-dominated professions, notably nursing professionals and secondary school teachers, were characterized with geographic distributions most closely approaching the general population, relatively narrower gender wage gaps, but also lower average annual earnings. A significant gender wage differential was found in each profession, with women earning 4.6‒12.5% less than men, after adjusting for traditional human capital measures, social characteristics intersecting with gender, and community remoteness and accessibility. Residential remoteness and census period generally explained little of the gender wage gap. Despite decades of pay equity policies in Canada, women’s earnings averaged 2.3‒7.9% less than men’s due to unexplained factors, a finding which may be attributed, at least in part, to persistent (unmeasured) gender discrimination even in highly educated professions.

The impact of occupational feminization on the gender wage gap and estimates of wage discrimination

ABSTRACT This study assesses the male-female wage gap across occupational categories ranked by gender density using data from the U.S. Current Population Survey. Our empirical findings suggest a consistent relationship between occupational feminization and the gender wage gap: female-dominated occupations have the lowest average earnings for men and women, whereas male-dominated occupations have the lowest gender wage gap. Gender-neutral occupations have the highest male and female wages, the largest gender wage gap, and the lowest estimated levels of wage discrimination.

The Influence of Messaging on Perceptions of Careers in Veterinary Medicine: Do Gender Stereotypes Matter?

The veterinary medical workforce is increasingly female; occupational feminization often transfers stereotypes associated with the predominant gender onto the profession. It is unknown whether within veterinary medicine a feminized public image is a possible contributor to the reduction in male applicants to training programs. The influence of stereotypically gendered messaging on how male and female undergraduate students perceive veterinary medicine was investigated in 482 undergraduate students enrolled in five introductory or second-level biology courses. Two short videos introducing the field of veterinary medicine were developed with imagery and language selected to emphasize either stereotypic feminine (communal) or masculine (agentic) aspects of the field. Participant groups were randomly assigned one of the two videos (feminine/communal or masculine/agentic) or no video (no exposure). An outcome survey elicited impressions of the field of veterinary medicine and gathered demographic data. There was a significant linear trend of condition on perception of the profession as feminine or masculine and on perception of the activities of a veterinarian as feminine/communal or masculine/agentic. Female participants were significantly more likely to agree that someone of their gender would be valued in the profession. Male participants reported significantly higher self-efficacy scores for performing the tasks of a veterinarian when they viewed the feminine stereotype video. These results demonstrate that gendered perceptions of the field can be manipulated. Intentional gendered messaging should be further explored as one strategy to broaden the talent pool in the workforce by attracting men back to the field.

Early 20th‐Century Career Counseling for Women: Contemporary Practice and Research Implications

The authors critically examine the development of career counseling for women during the early 20th century. The development of career counseling for women lagged behind career counseling for men. Challenges, such as feminization of occupations, restricted occupational opportunities, and societal norms, stunted the development of career counseling for women. Furthermore, career counseling for women varied based on racial groups. Early writings discussed opportunities specifically geared toward White, college‐educated, nonimmigrant women. Although these beginning opportunities provided formal guidance to White women, many other women were excluded from formal career counseling and are not represented in these writings. Implications include training practitioners to recognize their own biases when working with women, how gender bias influences career counseling inventories and career theories, and how counselors can challenge these biases and stereotypes to provide the full range of career opportunities to women. Future research should address the impact of career counseling on women of color.

Us versus Them: The Responses of Managers to the Feminization of High-Status Occupations

What happens when more and more women enter high-status occupations that were previously male-dominated occupations? This article explores how the processes by which the entrance of women into high-status occupations has affected the hiring, income, and perceived competence of women. I present the results of a general population experiment conducted on a large, random sample of the U.S. population. The experiment was designed to explore the hiring, income, and perceived competence of all women when high-status occupations become predominantly female. I show that when male managers are exposed to information about high-status occupations’ becoming predominantly female, they evaluate women who work in other high-status occupations as less competent, tend to hire them less frequently, and offer them lower salaries. Female managers, however, tend to respond to such changes in the labor force by valuing women more highly.

A Second Look at the Process of Occupational Feminization and Pay Reduction in Occupations.

Using the IPUMS-USA data for the years 1960-2015, this study examines trends in the effect of occupational feminization on occupational pay in the U.S. labor market and explores some of the mechanisms underlying these trends. The findings show that the (negative) association between occupational feminization and occupational pay level has declined, becoming insignificent in 2015. This trend, however, is reversed after education is controlled for at the individual as well as the occupational level. The two opposite trends are discussed in light of the twofold effect of education: (1) the entry of women into occupations requiring high education, and (2) the growing returns to education and to occupations with higher educational requirements. These two processes have concealed the deterioration in occupational pay following feminization. The findings underscore the significance of structural forms of gender inequality in general, and occupational devaluation in particular.

The Occupational Feminization of Wages

This article updates the 1995 study by Macpherson and Hirsch that used monthly Current Population Survey (CPS) data from 1973 to 1993 to examine the effects of occupational gender composition on earnings. In the updating process, the authors correct for biases in this data set that are attributable to the inclusion of imputed earners and the misreporting of occupation. They use CPS data from 1996 to 2010 to provide cross-sectional estimates of the impact of the feminization of occupations on wages, as well as its contribution to the gender wage gap. Longitudinal CPS data indicate that the negative effects of gender composition on earnings observed in cross-sectional data are lessened when researchers control for observed heterogeneity and are much reduced when controlling for unobserved heterogeneity. These findings are confirmed using much longer panels from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY79). Finally, the use of synthetic panels of aging cohorts suggests that wage penalties are largest for younger cohorts in predominantly female occupations.

Gender Wage Inequality: The De-gendering of the Occupational Structure

The gender segregation of occupations is an enduring feature of the labour market, and pay in female-dominated occupations remains lower than in male-dominated occupations. However, recent changes in the occupational structure have possibly altered the relationship between occupational segregation and the gender pay gap. Women's skills are increasingly in demand, and this is reducing the gender wage gap. We explore this premise using individual- and occupation-level Labour Force Survey and household panel data from Britain augmented with an innovative proxy indicator of productivity across occupations. The wage effects of occupational feminization are not as high as previously shown once this indicator is taken into account. Additionally, we find evidence that such wage effects are evolving into more complex processes, including differing impacts for graduates and non-graduates as well as for employees in graduate and non-graduate jobs. Claims that gender segregation is losing importance as a structuring factor in labour-market outcomes are therefore accurate. However, this applies mostly to women in jobs requiring high-level skills. Segregation continues to lower pay substantially for women in occupations requiring limited skills.

The Feminization of Occupations and Change in Wages: A Panel Analysis of Britain, Germany, and Switzerland

In the past four decades, women have made major inroads into occupations previously dominated by men. This paper examines whether occupational feminization is accompanied by a decline in wages: Do workers suffer a wage penalty if they remain in, or move into, feminizing occupations? We analyze this question over the 1990s and 2000s in Britain, Germany, and Switzerland, using longitudinal panel data to estimate individual fixed effects for men and women. Moving from an entirely male to an entirely female occupation entails a loss in individual earnings of 13 percent in Britain, 7 percent in Switzerland, and 3 percent in Germany. The impact of occupational feminization on wages is not linear, but sets apart occupations holding more than 60 percent of women. Moving into such female occupations incurs a wage penalty. Contrary to the prevailing idea in economics, differences in productivity—human capital, job-specific skills, and time investment—do not fully explain the wage gap between male and female occupations. The wage penalty associated with working in a female occupation is also much larger where employer discretion is greater—in the private sector—than where wage-setting is guided by formal rules—the public sector. These findings suggest that wage disparities across male and female occupations are due to gender devaluation.

Las mujeres en los ámbitos de poder económico y político de México

Despite the dramatic increase of women’s participation in the work market and higher education, their involvement both in the political sphere and in managerial and leadership positions in private companies is still low. Owing to the limited information available on this issue, this research has produced its own database from a detailed analysis of business directories. This paper analyses the participation of women in the work force; the presence of men and women in higher education; as well as feminization and masculinization of different occupations. Likewise, the paper explores the role of women in the posts of political representation, and the executive and judicial powers; women’s management role differences in the public and private sectors; the horizontal and vertical segregation in jobs and professional careers in the organizations; as well as differences between foreign and domestic capital companies. ceos sociodemographic characteristics are analyzed, as well as discrimination against mothers, conflicts within couples derived from their activities, “dual management” and the problem of roles settlement, the “glass ceiling” in Mexico, and occupational hierarchies.

The Occupational Feminization of Wages

The Occupational Feminization of Wages

Occupational segregation and gender differentials in earnings in Macedonia

This paper examines gender differentials in earnings in Macedonia, with special emphasis on the role of occupational segregation. The lower earnings of women in Macedonia cannot be explained by gender differences in measured human capital endowments. There is a high degree of segregation of jobs along gender lines, the end product of which is lower earnings for women relative to men. Women are over-represented in female-dominated occupations, and feminization of occupations has a negative impact on earnings. Even after controlling for numerous individual and job characteristics and gender composition of occupations, a huge amount of the gender wage gap remains unexplained. J31, P2

Health Professions and Occupations and Feminization Process: Trends and Implications

The paper discusses the feminization of occupations and professions of the health sector and presents trends and implications in the Brazilian context. Emphasizes dentistry, which is one of the professions in which feminization occurs sharply in the country. In Brazil, data from the 2000 census shows that women constitute the majority of students in higher education in health, even in the historically male as medicine and dentistry. Discuss the feminization of health professions implies thinking about the health and quality of life for professionals in their work contexts and training, in addition to questions relating to gender roles in the lives of these women.

Occupational sex-segregation, specialized human capital and wages: evidence from Britain

Female-dominated occupations are poorly paid, but there is disagreement about why. Sociological explanations argue that pay in such occupations is low because society undervalues ‘women’s work’, while economic theory argues that this is due to scant requirements for specialized skills. This article sheds light over these debates by examining the impact of occupational feminization on wages in Britain and exploring the mechanisms that produce it, using innovative statistical models that account for both observable and unobservable skill. Results confirm that occupational sex-segregation explains a sizeable portion of the gender wage gap and that wages in female-dominated occupations are lower than wages in other occupations. Inconsistent with human capital theory, low pay in female-dominated occupations cannot be explained fully by low skill specialization or by observable or unobservable characteristics of their workers. Remaining wage penalties in such occupations are consequently taken as evidence of institutional devaluation of ‘women’s work’.

Up the Down Staircase: Women's Upward Mobility and the Wage Penalty for Occupational Feminization, 1970-2007

This study examines the long-term trends of two parallel and related gender effects, in light of the hypothesis that highly rewarded occupations will be the most penalized by the process of feminization. Using multilevel models of the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series data from 1970 to 2007, the study analyzes trends in women’s occupational mobility and juxtaposes these trends with trends in the effects of feminization on occupational pay across diverse occupational wage groups. The findings reveal two opposing processes of gender (in)equality: during this period, many women had impressive success in entering highly rewarded occupations. Simultaneously, however, the negative effect of feminization on the pay levels of these occupations intensified, particularly in high-paid and male-typed occupations. Consequently, women found themselves moving “up the down staircase.” The findings confirm the dynamic nature of gender discrimination and have broad implications for our understanding of the devaluation and exclusion mechanisms discussed in earlier literature.

Looking Inwards: Towards a Geographically Sensitive Approach to Occupational Sex Segregation

Perales F. and Vidal S. Looking inwards: towards a geographically sensitive approach to occupational sex segregation, Regional Studies. This article questions implicit assumptions in the literature and explores the issue of occupational sex segregation from a geographical standpoint. Specifically, variation in the gender compositions of occupations, the degree of occupational sex dissimilarity, and the impact of occupational feminization on wages across local labour markets in England and Wales is uncovered and explained. These findings imply that occupational sex segregation and its outcomes are contingent on the local context, that policies aimed at achieving gender equality at work should be channelled through local authorities, and that further research should be devoted to exploring systematically the multiple intersections between geographical space and gender equality at work.

Women's Career Success and Work-life Adaptations in the Accountancy and Medical Professions in Britain

This article examines gendered career paths in two feminizing and highly qualified professions. Quantitative data show that in medicine the profession is internally segregated by sex, as women tend to opt for the family friendly but clinically inferior specialty of general practice. In accountancy internal segregation by sex is considerably less evident but women fail to rise through organizational hierarchies. Qualitative interviews with qualified doctors and accountants suggest that sex discrimination is to some extent still an issue but that the major factor underlying these different gendered career trajectories is that women still retain the major responsibility for domestic work and caring. They also suggest that doctors have been able to exercise more control over their working hours than accountants and that even when accountants work part-time, they work longer hours than contracted. Part-time work is also seen as seriously career-limiting. In our conclusions, we briefly examine the gender equality implications of these contrasting self-regulated and market-driven adaptations to occupational feminization.