Specializing in growing sectors: Wage returns and gender differences

Jennifer Graves and Zoe Kuehn ()

No 2018/01, Working Papers in Economic Theory from Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (Spain), Department of Economic Analysis (Economic Theory and Economic History)

Abstract: We test whether specializing in a field of study when related sectors are growing matters for future labor market outcomes. For eight high-income OECD countries we match data on individuals' specialization decisions in higher education from PIAAC (Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies) with national statistics on value added of related economic sectors. We find that individuals who chose fields of studies when related sectors were growing earn higher wages later in life. We also find that men are less likely to specialize in growing sectors. However, this is entirely driven by the fact that men avoid specializing in traditionally female fields, whose related sectors have grown more over recent decades (e.g. health, education). Only for men who obtained at least a Bachelor's degree can this avoidance be explained by lower wages. Men who obtained a vocational degree in growing female fields earn similar wages later in life as those specializing in shrinking male fields. We present suggestive evidence that gendered specialization decisions, paired with growth in traditionally female sectors could have contributed to narrowing gender wage gaps in recent decades

Keywords: higher education; specialization; sectors; labor market; gender; PIAAC (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I21 I23 J16 J24 O57 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 42 pages
Date: 2018-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu, nep-eur and nep-gen
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.uam.es/departamentos/economicas/analecon/especifica/mimeo/wp20181.pdf
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 404 Not Found (http://www.uam.es/departamentos/economicas/analecon/especifica/mimeo/wp20181.pdf [307 Moved Temporarily]--> https://www.uam.es/departamentos/economicas/analecon/especifica/mimeo/wp20181.pdf [301 Moved Permanently]--> https://www.uam.es/Economicas/AnalisisEconomicoTeoriaHistoria/1234888140248.htm/especifica/mimeo/wp20181.pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Specializing in growing sectors: Wage returns and gender differences (2021)
Working Paper: Specializing in growing sectors: Wage returns and gender differences (2019)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:uam:wpaper:201801

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers in Economic Theory from Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (Spain), Department of Economic Analysis (Economic Theory and Economic History) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Andrés Maroto-Sánchez ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).