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Gender Gap in Wages Increasing With Fall in Employment Opportunities

by Tanya Thomas on Aug 24 2011 9:40 PM

 Gender Gap in Wages Increasing With Fall in Employment Opportunities
Jobs that come with large paychecks but long work hours are increasing the gender gap that had been narrowed down to a great extent since the late 70s.
A study by sociologists from Indiana University and Cornell University finds that the growing trend of overworking - working 50 hours a week or more - is partly responsible for the slowdown Americans have experienced since the mid-1990s in the convergence of the gender gap in pay.

The study has found that the gap between the percentage of women working full-time compared to men has shrunk during the past 30 years but the gender gap involving long working hours has changed little and remains large.

"Women, even when employed full time, typically have more family obligations than men," said IU sociologist Youngjoo Cha, who specializes in gender, labor markets and social inequality.

"This limits their availability for the 'greedy occupations,' that require long work hours, such as high-level managers, lawyers and doctors. In these occupations, workers are often evaluated based on their face time."

The study, using data collected by the U.S. Census Bureau, found the relative hourly wage of overworkers compared to full-time workers has increased substantially over the past three decades. Because a greater percentage of male workers are overworking, this change benefited men more than women.

"Gender gaps in overwork, when coupled with rising returns to overwork, exacerbate the gender gap in wages," Cha said. "New ways of organizing work are reproducing old forms of inequality."

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The study was recently presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association.

Source-ANI


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