Occupational Sex Identification and the Assessment of Male and Female Earnings Inequality
According to McLaughlin (1978), research from 1978 expands on investigating whether occupational prestige or status is a determinant for differences between male and female earnings. The focus of the study was whether task differences contribute to earnings differentials between the sexes at a time when there was an explosion of women in the workforce full time (McLaughlin, 1978). The study added a feature to look into occupational structures that were missed from earlier studies and may have biased some individual level analysis because these earlier studies focused on occupation prestige (McLaughlin, 1978). Because researchers believed that women were relegated to low earning positions, it was discovered that the sex identification of the occupation is viewed to have substantial impact on both male and female earnings. The results show that the task based (data, people and things groupings) earning potential of male dominated occupations is higher for men (women earn about 60% less than men) than equally prestigious occupations dominated by females (McLaughlin, 1978). When the task of the job associates the occupation to male identification, both male and females have higher earnings than those occupations with tasks associated with female identification. Therefore, women may not only appeared to flood the labor force in certain occupations, but if they were in female identified occupations, then there would be a perceived earnings inequality even with higher level of required education for a female identified occupation (McLaughlin, 1978). Researchers believed that the education level referred to as a greater investment in human capital and thus for females a lower return on investment. Consequently, the perception developed that males receive better jobs and receive more pay whereas a woman’s job and get paid less.
The Gender Salary Gap: Do Academic Achievement, Internship Experience and College Major
Fuller & Schoenberger (1991) uses data from previous surveys and adds additional data on a population from an earlier survey of individuals with certain business related majors. The belief is that academic achievement, internship experience and college major plays a large role determining salary no matter what the gender (Fuller & Schoenberger, 1991). However, this survey delved into whether these college related factors had impact to just starting salary or for current salaries as well after participants were a part of the workforce and gaining some level of experience (whether being employed the whole time or just have had a job at some point during that period after graduation) (Fuller & Schoenberger, 1991). As for age and internship experience starting salaries are not affected. Some sample data and factors were discounted because of the five year time factor in analyzing starting and continuing salaries such as females dropping out of the labor market. However, an earlier study found that females starting salaries were only 11 per cent lower than males and increased to 14 percent gap over time, presumably because of the type of position (entry level) that allowed for fewer promotions (Fuller & Schoenberger, 1991).
Does a Management Degree do the Business for Women in the Graduate Labour Market?
Wilton (2007) study focuses on graduates of business and management degree programs and whether having a business degree provides better employment outcomes compared to other degrees and whether there are any gender differences in regard to success in the labour market. The theory is that macro level developments in the economy have created occupational change and now demand knowledge workers to fill existing positions just as higher education is expanding and scaling upward (Wilton, 2007). Businesses want not only degree credentialed persons, but also talented people who have a fluency of business acumen and are able to swiftly move into the workforce (‘hit the ground running’) (Wilton, 2007). Females with management degrees were falling into jobs that didn’t require a degree and when they did get a management degree job, they received lower earnings (Wilton, 2007). However, business graduates placed a greater emphasis on earnings in expectation of earning more than other graduates, despite reporting lower earnings in their first job after graduation and the most telling aspect of the gender gap after seven years of graduation was that 1) male business graduate were among the highest earner (second after those studying math and computing); 2) females business graduate were also behind math and computing graduates and only comparable to those with languages degrees (Wilton, 2007). As for career progression, business degree males tend to get into higher paid management positions more quickly after graduations than females, but females have a spurt and catch up after four years after graduation (Wilton, 2007). The pattern of entry into these jobs appears to be radically different: women from more administrative background and lower paid jobs and men a more direct route to higher paid management jobs. The analysis tends to support those managerial career paths for female business graduates evolve more slowly and consequently a disparity with males in earnings as they play catch-up with their male peers (Wilton, 2007)
