The Rising (and then Declining) Significance of Gender

Claudia Goldin

No 8915, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: In the past two decades gender pay differences have narrowed considerably and a declining significance of gender has pervaded the labor market in numerous ways. This paper contends that in the first several decades of the twentieth century there was a rising significance of gender. The emergence of gender distinctions accompanied several important changes in the economy including the rise of white-collar work for women and increases in women's educational attainment. Firms adopted policies not to hire women in particular occupations and to exclude men from other occupations. A model of discrimination is developed in which men oppose the hiring of women into certain positions. The assumptions of the model break down when women acquire known and verifiable credentials. The shift from the rising to the declining significance of gender may have involved such a change.

JEL-codes: J2 J7 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2002-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab
Note: DAE LS
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

Published as Blau, F. D. , M. C. Brinton, and D. B. Grusky (eds.) The Declining Significance of Gender? New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2006.

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