Do Male-Female Wage Differentials Reflect Differences in the Return to Skill? Cross-City Evidence from 1980-2000

Paul Beaudry and Ethan Lewis

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 2014, vol. 6, issue 2, 178-94

Abstract: Male-female wage gaps declined significantly over the 1980s and 1990s, while returns to education increased. In this paper, we use cross-city data to explore whether, like the return to education, the change in the gender wage gap may reflect changes in skill prices induced by the diffusion of information technology. We show that male-female and education-wage differentials moved in opposite directions in response to the adoption of PCs. Our most credible estimates simply that changes in skill prices driven by PC adoption can explain most of the decline in the US male-female wage gap since 1980.

JEL-codes: J15 J24 J31 J71 O33 R23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
Note: DOI: 10.1257/app.6.2.178
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (85)

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Working Paper: Do Male-Female Wage Differentials Reflect Differences in the Return to Skill? Cross-City Evidence From 1980-2000 (2012)
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