Gender and Job Preferences: New Methods and Data
Paper Session
Friday, Jan. 7, 2022 3:45 PM - 5:45 PM (EST)
- Chair: Nicole Maestas, Harvard University
Preferences for Job Tasks and Gender Gaps in the Labor Market
Abstract
Women and men work in markedly different jobs, leading to persistent occupational segregation by gender. This paper provides evidence that gender differences in how individuals value activities performed at work, termed job tasks, can help explain these sorting patterns. I conduct a hypothetical choice experiment to elicit workers’ willingness to pay for a set of tasks that are more frequently performed by one gender than the other. The experimental scenarios ask participants to choose between two hypothetical jobs that differ in terms of pay and the amount of time spent on a gender-typical task, but are otherwise the same. I find significant gender differences in willingness to pay for three of the five tasks that I examine. Willingness to pay is significantly higher among participants who report spending more time on a task in their current job, suggesting that estimates are correlated with actual sorting behavior. I show that gender differences in preferences for the tasks that I investigate can account for a substantial portion of occupational segregation in the U.S. labor market.What Do Jobseekers Want? Comparing Methods to Estimate Reservation Wages and the Value of Job Attributes
Abstract
Understanding jobseeker preferences, including their reservation wages and how much they value different non-wage amenities, is difficult because these parameters are not directly observable. We run an experiment at a job matching center in which we test four different methods for estimating these parameters. We find large and important differences between the methods, with the method most commonly used in household and labor force surveys - open ended questions - performing worst, and a short set of discrete choices performing best. We then use the data to estimate job seekers' valuations of different job attributes and explore how valuations differ by job seeker characteristics such as gender, education and duration of unemployment. Among other findings, we show that in our sample of jobseekers in Egypt, women are more sensitive to long commutes and value flexible schedules more than men. These findings have important implications for researchers who use and collect data on reservation wages and for policymakers and employers who aim to decrease matching frictions.Discussant(s)
Linh Tô
,
Boston University
Madeleine Gelblum
,
Facebook
Adam Osman
,
University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign
JEL Classifications
- J3 - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs