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Title: Education and the Gender Gap in Earnings at Career Entry
Resulting in 1 citation.
1. Marini, Margaret Mooney
Fan, Pi-Ling
Education and the Gender Gap in Earnings at Career Entry
Presented: New York, NY, American Sociological Association Annual Meetings, August 1996
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: American Sociological Association
Keyword(s): Discrimination, Sex; Gender Differences; High School; Higher Education; Income; Job Aspirations; Occupational Aspirations; Occupational Segregation; Social Environment; Unions; Wage Gap; Wage Rates

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

Analyzes the gender wage gap at career entry for 2 groups of workers, those with only vs [sic] more than a high school education, using a new approach that identifies several alternative explanatory mechanisms that account for the sorting of women & men into different types of jobs that offer different levels of reward. Because labor market rewards derive from the occupancy of labor market positions, matching processes operating at the microlevel that sort individual workers into existing slots, or openings, in a given microlevel structure of jobs & associated wages are examined. It is argued that the gender difference in wages at career entry results from several types of influences that affect the sorting of workers into jobs with different levels of reward: (1) gender differences in job-related skills & credentials, (2) gender differences in adult family roles, (3) gender differences in work & family aspirations, (4) gender discrimination by employers, & (5) gender differences in the availability & use of information & influence via social networks. Based on analysis of data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth collected 1979-1991, it is shown that the gender gap in wages at career entry is larger for those with only high school education (20%) than for those with more than high school education (13%). The difference in the size of the wage gap for the 2 education groups arises because there is greater occupational segregation by gender for occupations requiring only high school education than for those requiring more than high school education. The findings on the microlevel processes that match individuals to jobs indicate that gender segregation & the association between the gender type & wage rate of jobs within the organizational structure of the labor market are perpetuated to some degree by microlevel processes that produce gender differences in the aspirations & qualifications with which workers enter the labor market but at least as much & probably more by microlevel processes that operate at the point of career entry to channel women & men with the same aspirations & qualifications into different (gender-typed) jobs. (Copyright 1996, Sociological Abstracts, Inc., all rights reserved.)
Bibliography Citation
Marini, Margaret Mooney and Pi-Ling Fan. "Education and the Gender Gap in Earnings at Career Entry." Presented: New York, NY, American Sociological Association Annual Meetings, August 1996.