Access to Supervisory Jobs and the Gender Wage Gap among Professionals

摘要

The results of this study show that professional women encounter significant barriers in gaining access to meaningful supervisory jobs and in achieving pay equity with their male counterparts. Across all supervisory jobs, women earn only a 6 percent wage premium, while for men the wage premium is about 15 percent. However, among professionals who hold relatively more meaningful supervisory positions, women earn substantially higher wages and the gender wage gap, although significant, is reduced considerably. Clearly, the nature and hierarchy of supervisory positions are important determinants in improving the status of women professionals and reducing the significant gender wage gap in the labor market. Supply side variables such as education, cognitive skills, and work experience have little contribution in mitigating the significant gender wage gap. Instead, personal attributes such as shyness and marital status exert negative effects on the wages of professional women. Thus, statistical discrimination on the part of employers may restrict the upward mobility of qualified female workers. The fact that a large number of women supervisors are clustered in predominantly female jobs with female bosses suggests that professional women are segregated in large firms and do not hold meaningful supervisory positions that lead to higher wages and upward mobility. Thus gender segregation and the allocation of differential supervisory positions among professionals may contribute primarily to the lower earnings of female supervisors and the unequal'pay between males and females.