1. Gender Differences at Labor Market Entry: The ...

REFERENCE: H.-P. Blossfeld, S. Buchholz, J. Dämmrich, E. Kilpi-Jakonen, Y. Kosyakova, J. Skopek, M. Triventi and D. Vono de Vilhena (2015). Gender differences at labor market entry – the effect of changing educational pathways and institutional structures. Pp. 3-34 in Gender, Education and Employment: An International Comparison of School-to-Work Transitions, edited by H.-P. Blossfeld, J. Skopek, M. Triventi and S. Buchholz, Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar.

1. Gender Differences at Labor Market Entry: The Effect of Changing Educational Pathways and Institutional Structures Hans-Peter Blossfeld, Sandra Buchholz, Johanna Dämmrich, Elina Kilpi-Jakonen, Yuliya Kosyakova, Jan Skopek, Moris Triventi, and Daniela Vono de Vilhena1 INTRODUCTION In recent years, women have become increasingly successful in the educational systems of almost all Western societies, and they have now surpassed men in terms of educational attainment (Vincent-Lancrin 2008; Van Bavel 2012; DiPrete and Buchmann 2013). This process has been part of an educational expansion from which younger cohorts of females have profited more than their male contemporaries. As a result, women have become not only an important potential source of human capital for labor markets in modern societies but also potential competitors to the male workforce. Because educational qualifications provide the main resource for labor market entrants competing for jobs (Jacob et al. 2012), gender inequalities in labor market outcomes – which have been widely documented in the past (Rosenfeld and Kalleberg 1990; Anker 1998) – can be expected to have decreased or even been reversed. Women’s improvements in educational attainment have been accompanied by a postindustrial restructuring of labor markets. Whereas occupations in agriculture and manufacturing, traditionally dominated by men, have declined, skilled and highly qualified service jobs, which are often filled by women, have expanded. In particular, technological change has dramatically reduced the number of jobs requiring physical strength and risk-taking, thus diminishing opportunities for low-educated men (Hakim 1996). Taken 3

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Gender, education and employment

together, one can expect women’s chances on the labor market to have improved not only as a consequence of their higher educational attainment but also due to the economic transition toward service societies. Additional developments that have potentially reduced differences between men and women in the labor market are the general increase in egalitarian principles in modern societies, the increasing participation of women in the labor market, a growing educational homogamy of couples that questions the traditional division of labor within families, and the erosion of the male breadwinner model during the course of the globalization process (e.g., Blossfeld and Timm 2003; Blossfeld and Hofmeister 2006). However, despite these general developments that are likely to have improved women’s labor market positions, whether or not women really have been able to convert their educational success into gains on the labor market remains an open question. Empirical evidence suggests that gender differences in the labor market do indeed persist: Numerous studies document significant gender differences in terms of both occupational rewards and occupational sex segregation (see, e.g., Rosenfeld 1983; Rosenfeld and Kalleberg 1990; Charles 1992; Hakim 1996; Jacobs 1996; Anker 1998; Charles and Grusky 2004; Mandel and Semyonov 2006; Mandel 2012; Steinmetz 2012). One of the main explanations for these gender differences refers to gendered family responsibilities, with women being expected to take over a larger share of the work done at home and men focusing on work outside the home. This means that despite their increased labor force participation and higher level of education, women still have to cope with the double burden of family and work, and this is likely to influence females’ own career planning as well as employers’ hiring and promotion decisions. It has to be noted that most existing studies focus on the entire labor force. Whereas they provide an interesting picture of the overall degree of sex segregation and the gender gap in occupational rewards, they consider individuals who participate in the labor market at very different stages of the life course who have highly heterogeneous biographies in terms of both their occupational careers (amount and type of experience, job-related training, unemployment episodes, etc.) and family obligations (marriage, number of children, etc.). Up to now, very little is known about whether gender differences are determined already at the time of labor market entry (although see Blossfeld 1987; Jacobs 1989; Smyth 2005; Iannelli and Smyth 2008). There is a lack of empirical evidence – especially from an international comparative perspective and for more recent birth cohorts (although see Smyth 2005; Arulampalam et al. 2007; Triventi 2013). Investigating the first significant job is of crucial relevance for several reasons. First, research on the life course has shown that the effect of

Gender differences at labor market entry

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education is larger at the beginning of the occupational career, because at later stages, other factors such as on-the-job training, job commitment and family obligations become more important for labor market rewards (e.g., Marini and Fan 1997; Bukodi 2009; Bukodi and Dex 2009). Because women have become, on average, better educated than men in recent cohorts, the first significant job is a key attainment with which to examine whether gender differences exist already or whether they are not yet visible at this stage. Second, when focusing on labor market entrants, one could expect family responsibilities to still be relatively negligible within this group. Nevertheless, even if actual family formation affects labor market entry only to a limited extent, expectations about future family formation on the side of both women and employers may still do so. Therefore, studying individuals’ transition from education to employment permits an adequate understanding of whether the gender-specific patterns on the labor market emerge either early in men’s and women’s working lives or at more of a later stage instead. As mentioned above, we aim to adopt a comparative approach and investigate how gender-specific patterns arise at the transition from school to work in different countries. This is relevant because, on the one hand, all countries considered in this study have experienced a strong educational expansion, especially among women, along with a change in the occupational structure toward a reduction of the industrial sector and an expansion of the service sector. On the other hand, they differ in their educational system, labor market structures and regulations, family-oriented policies, and gender culture. These factors may affect the extent to which women have the opportunity to convert their higher educational attainment into advantageous positions at labor market entry. To summarize, the aim of this book is to analyze, from a comparative point of view, whether gender differences already exist at labor market entry; and, if this proves to be the case, how such differences have changed over time during the course of the educational expansion and the postindustrial restructuring of economies. In line with the existing literature (Charles and Grusky 2004; Blackburn and Jarman 2006), we conceptualize gender differences at labor market entry along two dimensions: vertical inequalities and horizontal differences. The concept of vertical inequality relates to job rewards and positions. Vertical inequalities arise, for example, when women earn less (the so-called gender wage gap), have less prestigious jobs, or work in less ‘promising’ positions (e.g., without leadership tasks). The concept of horizontal differences does not necessarily relate to inequalities; instead, it refers to the fact that men and women concentrate in specific occupations and/or labor market segments. For instance, men are highly represented in occupations

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in the manual and production sector, whereas women work predominately in service and care-giving occupations (e.g. sales, nursing, or teaching). The differential distribution of men and women across occupations – known as ‘occupational gender segregation’ – is a relevant topic for at least two reasons: First, it is inefficient economically, because it could prevent skilled individuals from moving into occupations in which they could perform better and gain more job satisfaction (Hegewisch et al. 2010). Second, it is conceived to be a major cause of the gender wage gap, because earnings tend to be lower when the share of female workers in an occupation is higher (Leicht 2008). Hence, although these horizontal differences do not describe inequalities as such, they may still contribute to the emergence of vertical inequalities (Reskin 1993; Chang 2000; Jarman et al. 2012; Magnusson 2013). Therefore, it is important to understand how horizontal gender differences and vertical inequalities are interrelated. Specifically, the analyses in this international comparative book volume will ask: 1. Do horizontal gender differences (occupational and sectorial sex segregation) and vertical gender inequalities (occupational outcomes) exist at labor market entry; and if so, to what extent? 2. How do horizontal gender differences and vertical inequalities at labor market entry develop over time? In particular, do men’s and women’s occupational outcomes converge or diverge over time? 3. Do different educational pathways of young men and women account for horizontal gender differences and vertical gender inequalities at labor market entry? Do gender differences and inequalities vary across educational pathways; that is, is the gender gap different for different educational pathways? 4. How are horizontal gender differences and vertical gender inequalities interrelated? More specifically, to which extend do horizontal gender differences account for gender inequalities in vertical outcomes? The remainder of this introductory chapter presents a theoretical discussion on the evolution of gender differences at labor market entry and how these differences might be developing in step with the social and economic changes in modern societies. Subsequently, we provide a comparative perspective focusing on the cross-national variations in patterns of gender differences and inequalities at labor market entry due to different institutional settings. Afterwards, we discuss the general research design of the study followed by the country chapters. In particular, this part introduces a more detailed discussion on how to conceptualize and measure horizontal differentiation and vertical outcomes. The final section summarizes the structure of the book.


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COMPETING THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF GENDER DIFFERENCES AT LABOR MARKET ENTRY In this section, we shall present a theoretical discussion on the role of gender at labor market entry and its (potentially) changing role over time. We shall start our discussion with general economic and sociological theories that predict a convergence in gender inequalities over time during the course of educational expansion and the tertiarization of economies. Subsequently, we introduce further theoretical arguments that highlight the importance of individual and gender-specific preferences and constraints in the educational and occupational domain. In addition, from a structural point of view, we discuss the role of horizontal differentiation for the emergence of vertical gender inequalities. Overall, these arguments predict a persistence rather than a convergence of gender differences and inequalities at labor market entry. Finally, we discuss how gender differences and inequalities might be shaped by educational pathways. Expectations of gender convergence Two main theoretical arguments would lead us to expect a convergence of gender inequalities at labor market entry: neoclassical theories of human capital and sociological theories of modernization and post-industrialism. According to the theory of human capital (Mincer 1958; Becker 1970), labor markets are segmented in terms of workers’ human capital (skills and knowledge acquired mainly through education and training). This is seen as the most important indicator of occupational productivity and, thus, occupational rewards. A basic premise is that individuals invest rationally in human capital accumulation on the basis of cost–benefit considerations. Workers are assumed to maximize their utility by choosing the best possible job they can achieve with the human capital at their disposal. Similarly, employers act rationally in order to maximize their profits: They will try to hire the best qualified worker available for an open position. According to this basic economic reasoning, individuals with the same qualification should have similar returns to education in terms of job characteristics independent of gender. Hence, this approach is gender-neutral and argues that the matching of individuals to jobs can be explained fully by individuals’ different human capital, because both employers and workers will try to maximize their utilities. From this vantage point, there is no reason to expect any vertical inequality in labor market outcomes between men and women who have

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the same education level and, consequently, the same endowment in terms of human capital. By expanding their participation in education over recent decades, women have increased their investment in human capital in order to pursue enhanced opportunities in the labor market (Bradley and Charles, 2004; Wharton 2005). Therefore, given a more equalized (and on the whole, increased) human capital accumulation in rationalized market economies, men and women should enter similar jobs when they exit the educational system. Because today’s young women are, on average, higher educated than their male peers, a strict human capital approach would expect gender inequalities at labor market entry not just to diminish; they should also reverse across time as women compared to men yield higher job rewards due to higher productivity. A second set of arguments supporting the idea of a converging vertical gender gap at labor market entry is promoted by sociological theories of modernization (Parsons 1970), liberal industrialism (Treiman 1970), and post-industrialism (Bell 1976). These theories predict an overall decline in social inequality over time, because achievement becomes increasingly important in modern societies whereas the role of ascription decreases. From this perspective, it is convenient for a society to select individuals through the educational system and to allocate them to different occupational positions on the basis of their knowledge and skills rather than on the basis of ascriptive characteristics (such as gender, race, and ethnicity). This is the only way for a society to ensure that individual merit is rewarded and talents are allocated efficiently. Thus, very similar to human capital theory, sociological theories on modernization would predict a declining gender gap in labor market success over time. Overall, both arguments predict that female entrants should increasingly occupy better jobs (compared to their male counterparts) over cohorts simply because they are higher qualified. However, among individuals with the same educational level, gender should not play any role in job reward. To put it in other words, vertical gender inequalities at labor market entry are simply a function of gender disparities in the endowment of education and training. Expectations of persistent gender inequalities The aforementioned arguments conceptualize education as a homogeneous good or stock of capital. However, this might not be the way things are, because educational systems are organized not only vertically but also horizontally. In many countries, there is a relevant distinction in secondary education between an academic track and vocational training with each leading to different educational pathways (Lucas 2001). Moreover, post-secondary


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education is differentiated basically by fields of study that not only transfer different kinds of skills and knowledge (van de Werfhorst and Kraaykamp 2001) but also channel students into various occupations in the labor market (Reimer et al. 2008). Accordingly, even though men and women may hold equal levels of education, their type of education and field of study may differ, and these dissimilarities could lead to heterogeneous occupations with different rewards (e.g., Anker 1998; Gerber and Cheung 2008). Therefore, earlier choices of specific vocational trainings and fields of study account for horizontal differentiation in occupations at the later stage of labor market entry. Indeed, several studies have found that despite women’s increased access to higher education, gender segregation across academic disciplines still persists (Bradley 2000; Charles and Bradley 2002; Charles and Grusky 2004). In other words, not only the level of education (degree) but also the type of education (specialization) is central to segregation processes (Steinmetz 2012, p. 49). Hence, when explaining vertical gender inequalities at labor market entry, several theories take individuals’ preferences regarding their type of education and occupation into account. Rational choice theorists such as Polachek (1981) argue that women might choose educational paths leading to less rewarding jobs because they anticipate future family obligations and career discontinuities. Thus, young women might not necessarily strive to maximize their occupational rewards (such as earnings) by looking for the ‘best’ possible jobs given their level of human capital. Instead, they might prefer jobs with more flexible working hours and security that make it easier to reconcile work and family roles but are paid less (Wilton 2007). Similarly, Hakim (2006) argues that women display a greater desire to gain work–life balance, opting more often for reduced-time jobs. Moreover, it has been shown that women display lower levels of self-perception and self-esteem resulting in an under-evaluation of their own abilities and options, and this makes them more likely to accept lower level jobs than their male counterparts (Bielby 2001). Sociological approaches highlight the joint roles of socialization, peer pressure, and the persistence of gender stereotypes in cultural norms and beliefs as a vehicle of vertical gender inequality reproduction. The ‘socialization perspective’ argues that because individuals are confronted with gender-specific perceptions and ideals already during childhood, they later go on to show gender-specific educational choices and labor market behavior. It is argued that such gender-specific stereotypes and ideals are very rigid because they are formed by prior (and more traditional) generations (Breen and García-Peñalosa 2002). Furthermore, socialization is conceived as the beginning of a lifelong system of social control by peers constraining the

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choices of women and men according to what is seen as socially acceptable (Jacobs 1989). According to the identity-formation model (Bielby and Bielby 1988), gender identities are arranged in a way that allows men to combine work with family identities easily but restricts women’s efforts to do the same. Hence, the male provider identity emphasizes men’s focus on career, whereas female caregiving and housekeeping identities distract women from strict career orientations. Because women and men repeatedly reconstruct their gender identities by female and male role enactment, gender identities can be assumed to shift only gradually, even when female labor force participation rises. In this perspective, the more strongly gender roles are defined in a given society, the more individuals tend to pursue gender-typical paths in their life course and career. Nonetheless, allocation to different jobs involves a two-sided matching of prospective employees’ and employers’ preferences and choices (BeckGernsheim and Ostner 1978). In this respect, institutional theories relate vertical gender inequalities to employers’ actions and practices of recruitment and promotion at the workplace. For instance, employers’ hiring decisions might be driven not only by considerations of profit maximization but also by their (or their customers’) prejudices against women. In this vein, Becker (1971) argues that employers might have a ‘taste for discrimination’ leading to either gender-specific exclusion from certain occupations (this could be argued for both genders, but the most frequent argument is that women are excluded), to lower pay (for women) within an occupation, or to a combination of the two. Similarly, the ‘statistical discrimination’ approach argues that employers will continue to treat women and men differently (Phelps 1972; Arrow 1973). However, this is not a result of employers’ tastes, but rather a result of coping with uncertainty. The heart of this approach is the assumption that employers have only imperfect information about (potential) employees’ future productivity, rendering hiring decisions as decisions under uncertainty. Facing such an information problem, employers will rely not only on a candidate’s current human capital but also on stereotyped information based on the productivity characteristics of the specific group to which the candidate belongs. For instance, because women have had (in the past) a higher probability of leaving or interrupting their jobs after the birth of a child, employers are inclined to evaluate female candidates (even though they do not yet have any children) as a more risky investment than males. Hence, hiring practices based on statistical discrimination can lead to gender inequalities in labor market outcomes even for equally qualified and still childless men and women. Drawing on discrimination approaches, segmentation theory (Baron and Bielby, 1980; Doeringer and Piore, 1985) predicts that occupational


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inequalities and differences between men and women will persist because of the organizational logic of labor markets. This approach distinguishes between internal and primary labor market segments (typically jobs characterized by restricted access, higher skill requirements, higher wages, extended social security, and long-term career prospects) and external and secondary labor market segments (typically jobs characterized by less restricted access, lower skill requirements, lower wages, and limited career prospects). Contrary to external labor markets, which are governed by supply and demand, internal labor markets follow internally prescribed institutional or administrative rules that define entry jobs, promotion ladders, and the workers’ pay and privileges (Blossfeld 1987). Because employers’ investments in on-the-job training are higher in internal labor markets, an employee’s career in the firm has to last longer in order to recover the costs of training. Therefore, if employers assume that men represent a safer and less risky investment (e.g., because they are less likely to leave the job), they will prefer to hire men for the ‘good jobs’ located in the internal markets, whereas women are more likely to be recruited for the ‘bad jobs’ in the external labor markets. Summing up, all of the aforementioned approaches conceive gender as a factor that substantially guides the allocation of individuals to specific educational degrees, occupations, and occupational positions. Therefore, in contrast to a strict interpretation of human capital theory and modernization theory, they paint a less ‘optimistic’ picture of how vertical gender inequalities at labor market entry might develop over time. In particular, they suggest that gender inequalities will persist or, if they are to decline at all, they will do so only marginally. In other words, even if women have outcompeted men in terms of educational level, they will not outcompete men in terms of labor market success due to gender-related mechanisms that impede a full conversion of the female educational upgrade. Horizontal differentiation and the emergence of vertical inequalities The previous theoretical arguments emphasize the role of individuals’ preferences, resources, and choices in producing gender inequalities in occupational outcomes. Nevertheless, these inequalities cannot simply be reduced to being the product of bilateral negotiations between employers and prospective employees. Both social stratification and segmented labor market theories argue that employees’ wages are more than just a function of their human capital and their level of (expected) productivity. Indeed, wages are determined not only through abstract and universal market actions but also through institutionalized processes including statutory regulation, collective bargaining, employment contracts, managerial actions, and regulations

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requiring the comparison of wages between groups (Rubery et al. 1998, p. 187). As a consequence, there are particular segments of the labor market (specific industries, organizations, sectors) in which well-paying jobs are located and returns to education are higher than elsewhere (Doeringer and Piore, 1985; Kalleberg and Berg 1994). If women and men follow different educational pathways that lead them to enter specific types of occupations and sectors belonging to different labor market segments, female and male entrants will not have the same levels of earnings and prestige. Horizontal occupational gender segregation is therefore likely to contribute to the evolution of vertical inequalities. In fact, many studies show that women are concentrated more strongly in occupations characterized by lower earnings (see Leicht 2008 for a literature review), less career mobility, and less autonomous working arrangements and authority positions (Reskin 1993; Chang 2000; Jarman et al. 2012). Three main arguments have been developed to explain why female-dominated occupations are less well-rewarded: devaluation of female work, overcrowding, and skill specificity. All three arguments hypothesize a negative relationship between the percentage of women in an occupation and the wage level. Indeed, several studies have found empirical support for this relationship (e.g., Reid 1998; England et al. 2007). First, the theory of devaluation relies on the assumption that society perceives female characteristics as having less cultural value than male characteristics. Consequently, female work is also evaluated as being inferior to male work in general. These widespread and deeply rooted cultural values are institutionalized in the wage structure and lower wages in femaledominated occupations of both males and females (England 1992; Grönlund and Magnusson 2011). In other words, gender inequality can take the form of wage discrimination of female work in general and not just of individual female workers. Second, according to the crowding argument, women’s lower pay is explained by the fact that women are crowded into a smaller number of occupations compared to men (Bergmann 1974). The original argument states that the main reason for crowding is rooted in the efforts of trade unions or employers to exclude women from ‘men’s work.’ As a result, the oversupply of female workers in a smaller number of occupations leads to a reduction of wages for women’s labor. In a similar vein, some authors argue that there is an attempt to keep females out of certain occupations in order to avoid a loss of the status associated with that job (‘pollution’ theory, cf. Goldin 2002). However, it is still possible that the crowding of women in certain occupations – which are, on average, less well paid (nursing, teaching, etc., see Bradley


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and Charles 2004) – is the result of female self-selection due to women’s job preferences (Hakim 2000). Third, according to the specialized human capital hypothesis, femaledominated occupations are characterized (on average) by lower wages not because they are perceived as being less valuable than male-dominated jobs, but because they often require less specific skills (Tam 1997). Because individuals’ investment in any form of human capital is costly, it has to be rewarded by employers in order to guarantee its adequate supply. Investment in specialized human capital (subject of study, on-the-job training) is even more costly than investment in general human capital, because its application is more restricted and less transferable across sectors and types of job. Compared to men, women are less likely to invest in skill specialization, because women are usually confronted with harsher work–family tradeoffs and thereby face greater constraints and uncertainties (Polavieja 2012). Therefore, the lower wages in female-dominated occupations result from the fact that women tend to enter occupations that require less specialized skills and less on-the-job training. To summarize, we can conclude that horizontal gender differences might contribute to vertical gender inequalities. At labor market entry, young women may not be able to earn more or enter into more prestigious positions than young men, despite their higher level of education. Structural arguments suggest that this is because women and men compete only partly with each other on the labor market because they are still concentrated in very different occupations that differ in terms of perceived value, crowding, or skill specificity. Tertiarization and horizontal differentiation Economic restructuring in the form of service sector growth and a decline in agriculture and production jobs has challenged the occupational destinations of labor market entrants. However, it has done this in different ways for either women or men. Indeed, in earlier cohorts, men were employed more often in primary and secondary sectors, whereas traditionally women have entered jobs mainly in the tertiary sector. Therefore, in recent cohorts, more men should enter tertiary sector jobs compared to the past, whereas women should have maintained their higher affinity for jobs in this sector. Therefore, according to this argument, one should expect a reduction of horizontal sectorial segregation over time (Kerr et al. 1960). Nevertheless, it is important to consider that the broad employment sectors are characterized by a high level of internal heterogeneity. For instance, the service sector includes occupations such as teaching, nursing, and social work, which are seen as typically female-oriented; but also policing,

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truck driving, and computer repairs, which are – in contrast – considered to be typically male-oriented jobs. This means that whereas a reduction of horizontal segregation could have taken place on the sectorial level, gender differences in occupational destinations could persist on a more fine-grained occupational level. For instance, several studies have shown that the general increase in female labor force participation, which has accompanied service sector expansion and economic rationalization, has gone along with high horizontal gender segregation and the consolidation of so-called pink-collar ‘occupational ghettos’ (Charles 1992; Chang 2000; Charles and Grusky 2004; Charles 2005). This ‘empirical anomaly’ (Charles 1992, p. 484) is explained mainly by the ‘outsourcing’ of female household tasks such as childcare, cleaning, and food services into paid work – thus into new occupations and employment niches. These occupations are particularly attractive for women, because they correspond more closely to their interests and tend to provide better opportunities to combine family and work (Charles 1992; Steinmetz 2012). On the other side, although shifting progressively toward service sector jobs, men still have the opportunity to opt for those occupations presupposing skills and tasks that have been seen traditionally as being typically male. Furthermore, due to the devaluation of women’s occupations, men might be at a higher risk of being exposed to cultural disapproval and stigmatization when entering feminized occupations, and they will therefore tend to avoid them (England and Li 2006; England 2010). Summing up, the tertiarization of the economy and the decline in traditionally male jobs have not necessarily led to diminishing horizontal differences at labor market entry. Rather, there is a conglomerate of factors on the individual, institutional, structural, and cultural level that intervene in driving the development of horizontal gender differentiation among labor market entrants – even in a service sector economy. Thus, how horizontal differentiation has developed over time in different country settings and how this has affected vertical gender inequalities remain open empirical questions. Educational attainment and gender segregation In line with the human capital and social stratification approaches, previous studies have shown that educational attainment has a clear positive effect on both the wages (Card 1999) and the occupational status of the first significant job (Müller 2005; Wolbers 2007). Moreover, the higher the educational level achieved, the better the characteristics of the first job in terms of prestige, authority, and security (e.g., Bernardi 2003; Abendroth et al. 2013). However, the returns to education could differ between men and women, meaning that vertical gender inequalities could vary across levels of qualification. In this


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regard, one can think of educational level as a factor that not only mediates but also moderates vertical gender inequalities at labor market entry. We can expect this for several reasons: First, the age at which educational choices are made is likely to affect how gender-typical they are, with choices made at earlier ages being more gender-typical (Buchmann and Charles 1995). Thus, individuals with lower educational levels leaving school and training earlier are more likely to enter gender-typical occupations. Also, several studies have found that the probability of entering mixed rather than gendertypical occupations increases with rising educational levels (Smyth 2005; Steinmetz 2012; Imdorf et al. forthcoming). Moreover, egalitarian values, which could promote gender-atypical choices, might be more widespread among the highly educated (Dryler 1998). Second, gender differences in type of education play an important role in channeling individuals toward gender-typical careers (Borghans and Groot 1999; Smyth 2005; Smyth and Steinmetz 2008). For instance, Blossfeld (1987) has shown for West Germany that the accentuated presence of gender differences in vocational training, particularly at the secondary level, is associated strongly with gender segregation in the labor market over the life course and across cohorts. This pattern of high gender segregation is related to the occupational character of vocational training: Officially recognized training certificates constitute a prerequisite for specific jobs. Therefore, vocational training may lead to strong horizontal differentiation in first jobs. Nevertheless, this does not necessarily apply to other institutional settings that might have weaker linkages between the educational and occupational system. Third, there might be gender-specific selectivity across different educational pathways (Gangl et al. 2003). One could argue that the smaller – in relative terms – the group with low qualifications, the more negatively selective this group will be regarding productivity-enhancing skills (such as competencies, cognitive abilities, and noncognitive skills). Correspondingly, individuals in the lower educated group will have reduced vertical outcomes simply because of their less productive resources or higher stigmatization enforced by statistical discrimination on the employers’ side. Following this argument, given that in recent cohorts women are less likely to end up on low educational levels compared to men, they could be expected to be more disadvantaged in terms of job rewards among the low educated. In contrast, one could argue that gender inequality should be more pronounced among the higher educated labor market entrants because they are more ‘costly’ in terms of wages, job responsibilities, and job-specific training. Consequently, riskaverse employers would opt for the ‘less risky’ male job applicants.

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THE ROLE OF NATIONAL INSTITUTIONAL SETTINGS The previous sections have presented competing theoretical arguments on how horizontal gender differences and vertical gender inequalities in the first job may have changed in modern societies. However, countries might differ in the extent of these gendered labor market outcomes and their development over time because of the influence of different country-specific factors. Previous research has shown that different characteristics of the educational system, the labor market, gender culture, and the welfare state impact on gender-specific labor market outcomes in the entire population (see, e.g., Charles and Grusky 2004; Mandel and Semyonov 2006; Steinmetz 2012; Triventi 2013). For labor market entrants, we expect these factors to play a similar role, yet with some particularities due to the early stage of the labor market career. Therefore, in this section, we discuss the influence of the following institutional factors on occupational gender differences and inequalities in the first significant job: (1) the structure of the educational and vocational training systems, (2) the labor market structure and employment protection legislation, (3) the gender culture, and (4) the welfare state and family policies. The section concludes with a short overview of the main institutional characteristics of the countries analyzed in this volume. Structure of the educational system It is well known that characteristics of the educational system such as stratification, occupational specificity, and standardization influence the process of labor market entry (Allmendinger 1989; Blossfeld and Stockmann 1998; Müller and Shavit 1998). Therefore, they are also likely to impact on gendered outcomes in the first significant job. Educational systems differ with regard to their level of stratification, meaning the allocation of students into different school tracks and types of education (Allmendinger 1989; Shavit et al. 2007). Educational systems with high stratification – such as Germany and other Central European countries – sort students at a relatively young age (between 10 and 12) into distinct educational tracks that provide different skills and lead to differentiated educational and occupational pathways. As discussed above, earlier educational choices tend to be more gender-typical (Buchmann and Charles 1995). Furthermore, in most countries, only a small proportion of students actually change track after the first allocation (Brunello and Checchi 2007). Therefore, in systems with higher stratification, horizontal gender differences at labor market entry are likely to be more pronounced than in countries with lower stratification (Estévez-Abe 2005; Steinmetz 2012).


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The second dimension is occupational specificity, which refers to the strength of the institutional linkages between educational certificates and occupations (Müller and Shavit 1998). In countries with high occupational specificity, labor market entrants with the same type of education tend to end up in a narrower set of occupations compared to countries with low occupational specificity. Therefore, gender-specific educational choices lead to horizontal occupational gender differences, and these are likely to be more pronounced when linkages between education and the labor market are stronger (i.e., in systems with higher occupational specificity; see Borghans and Groot 1999; Smyth 2005; Smyth and Steinmetz 2008). Occupational specificity may also affect the degree of vertical gender inequalities. The latter may be less marked in systems with higher occupational specificity, because much of the knowledge and skills demanded for a specific occupation are already transmitted during education. Educational certificates thus provide reliable information about job candidates’ skills and whether they possess the knowledge required for the job. As a consequence, employers should rely more on school qualifications and will be less likely to select job seekers based on ascriptive characteristics (such as gender). Finally, standardization refers to the extent to which the educational standards and the quality of certificates are uniform and well-known throughout the nation (Allmendinger 1989). Standardization can be expected to reduce vertical gender inequalities at labor market entry in a similar way to occupational specificity. In countries with high standardization, employers have more reliable information on a job applicant’s skills and potential productivity, and this is likely to reduce their reliance on candidates’ ascriptive characteristics when making hiring decisions. Labor market structures and employment protection legislation Different characteristics of the labor market are likely to impact on gendered occupational outcomes in the first job: most importantly, female labor force participation, service sector employment, and employment protection legislation. In all industrialized countries, females have increased their participation in the labor market during the last decades. On the one hand, it has been argued that women are in a better position to compete in the labor market when their labor force participation is high, because their bargaining power increases (Kanter 1977; Charles 1992) and this should result in lower vertical gender inequalities. On the other hand, however, it is also likely that with rising female labor force participation, the labor market is joined increasingly by women who are not primarily career-oriented but are more interested in

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a suitable combination of family and work tasks (‘adaptive women’; Hakim 2006). These adaptive women are more likely to enter typically female occupations, because these jobs show more similarity to traditional female responsibilities and often provide better opportunities to combine paid and unpaid work (Hakim 2006). Moreover, these women are less likely to enter higher positions, because it is more difficult to combine employment and family in these jobs (see previous section). Following this reasoning, and in contrast to the aforementioned arguments, one could thus expect horizontal gender differences and vertical gender inequalities to be more pronounced when female labor force participation is high. Differences between countries regarding females’ and males’ labor market entry positions might also be a result of a changed composition of occupations. During the last decades, all industrialized countries have experienced a reduction of employment in the agricultural and the manufacturing sector and an increase of employment in the service sector (Charles and Grusky 2004). On the one side, many service sector occupations correspond more to female than male interests, because these jobs often translate traditional female household tasks into paid work (Esping-Andersen 1990) thereby attracting mainly women (Charles 1992; Charles and Grusky 2004).2 On the other side, typically male occupations, especially blue-collar ones and jobs in the primary sector, have become scarcer, and this might lead men to enter the expanding service sector. Whereas these trends may lead potentially to lower horizontal gender differences, the empirical evidence instead shows that even in highly tertiarized economies, women tend to concentrate in the so-called ‘pink-collar occupational ghettos’ (Charles 1992; Chang 2000; Charles and Grusky 2004; Charles 2005). Therefore, in countries with a larger service sector, we may find higher horizontal gender differences. Finally, employment protection legislation is likely to impact on vertical gender inequalities (Estevez-Abe 2005; 2006). The reason is that the decision to employ women is likely to be driven by the costs employers have to bear when women interrupt or exit employment careers due to family obligations. The more demanding the job in terms of skill requirements and responsibilities, the higher the risks employers have to bear. Following this logic, the easier and less costly it is to fire and hire or to replace workers who interrupt their careers, the less motivated employers will be to discriminate against women. Accordingly, these employers’ risks are higher in countries that provide rigid employment protection than in countries with less rigid employment protection. Hence, it can be expected that vertical gender inequalities will be less pronounced in countries with lower levels of employment protection (Estevez-Abe 2005; 2006). Nevertheless, in countries with high levels of employment protection unions might be successful in reducing wage differentials for a large part of


19

the workforce (‘wage compression’, e.g., see Wallerstein 1999), which might alleviate wage inequality in total and gender inequalities in particular. Gender culture For several decades, growing attention has been given to gender equality, and national and international stakeholders stress increasingly that gender equality is a fundamental social goal (Charles and Grusky 2004). Genderrelated values, in general, refer to beliefs and norms about (1) how (typical) women should act, and (2) on which spheres of life (family or work) they should focus. In the mid-20th century, nearly all industrialized countries practiced a clear division of labor within families: Men were the breadwinners, primarily responsible for paid work, whereas women acted as homemakers, primarily responsible for household and childcare. Nonetheless, along with the development of rising female labor force participation, this traditional net gender role division weakened progressively over the course of the 20th century (Hofäcker 2006). Nowadays, the woman’s role in most industrialized countries is no longer narrowed down to being a housewife and mother but has been extended to include her position on the labor market (Lück 2006). However, the growth in female labor force participation has not been accompanied by a similar increase in men’s involvement in household tasks. Thus, women still take over the majority of chores and have to handle the double burden of combining work and family tasks (Hofäcker 2006; Sayer 2010). Despite these general developments, countries differ widely regarding both the position of women on the labor market and the gendered division of household tasks. For instance, Southern and Central European countries display a greater orientation toward traditional gender roles, locating women primarily in the sphere of family and household tasks and supporting the idea of a male breadwinner model. In contrast, the Nordic countries show a more pronounced gender-egalitarian orientation (Lück 2006), meaning that the woman’s role is expanded to include labor market participation and women are perceived as being equal to men in their employment abilities (Charles 1992; Brandt 2011). Here, the division of household tasks is also the most egalitarian, although still not shared equally between men and women (Sayer 2010). It is likely that the gender-egalitarian culture impacts on various gendered labor market outcomes. For instance, it has been shown that women’s labor force participation is higher in countries with a more gender-egalitarian culture (Chang 2000; Mandel and Semyonov 2006). When women and men

20


are perceived as equally suited for labor market careers, women should invest more in all kinds of educational fields and occupations and not only in the traditionally female ones; therefore, in more gender-egalitarian cultural settings, horizontal gender differences should be weaker. However, as suggested by Charles and Grusky (2004), the promotion of gender equality values is often combined with notions of gender essentialism; that is, the belief that men and women have different ‘natural’ attitudes and abilities. If this is the case, even in gender-egalitarian countries, horizontal segregation may persist at a high level. Regarding vertical gender inequalities at labor market entry, it can be expected that these are less pronounced in countries with more emphasis on gender-egalitarian culture (Chang 2000; Blackburn et al. 2002; Charles and Grusky 2004). Because the whole population shows more gender egalitarianism, the average employer’s egalitarianism should also be higher and reveal a lower likelihood of discriminating against women. Furthermore, women should be more motivated to access higher positions, because they see themselves as being just as attached to the labor market as men. Welfare states and family policies Welfare states in general and family policies in particular are likely to mirror a country’s orientation toward egalitarian values. However, welfare state policies might also lag behind or run in front of cultural change – for example, when welfare states have not yet implemented necessary changes to their social policy (Pfau-Effinger 1998). Due to this imperfect relationship, it is important to consider both gender culture and welfare state policies when examining occupational gender differences and inequalities across countries. Two main areas of efforts by welfare states to reduce the female double burden of combined work and family tasks will be discussed in the following: first, the role of the state as employer (provider of public employment); and second, family policies such as maternity leave and public childcare facilities. Public employment can be seen as an instrument to bring women increasingly into the labor market, and it is likely to impact on both horizontal gender differences and vertical gender inequalities (Esping-Andersen 1990; Mandel and Semyonov 2006). On the one hand, a large proportion of public sector employment comprises typically female responsibilities (e.g., care and service)3 and offers more convenient working conditions for women and especially for mothers compared to private sector jobs. Consequently, these jobs are likely to attract women to a large extent, resulting in female occupational niches and more pronounced horizontal gender differences (Mandel and Semyonov 2006; Yaish and Stier 2009; Steinmetz 2012). On the


21

other hand, however, public sector jobs tend to have higher antidiscrimination enforcement, resulting in less discrimination of women in these jobs (Mandel 2009; Barón and Cobb-Clark 2010). Hence, with growing public sector employment, vertical gender inequalities should be weaker, whereas horizontal gender differences should be stronger. State-provided family policies such as maternity leave and childcare, as the second broad area of influence, aim to facilitate female employment, especially for women with family responsibilities (Stier et al. 2001). However, long legal maternity leave in the tradition of a male breadwinner model does not just motivate women to interrupt their careers for a longer period and to lower their career commitment. It is also likely to enhance employers’ discrimination against women, because career interruptions are costly for employers in the private sector. It can therefore be expected that female labor force participation will be reduced and vertical inequalities will be reinforced by the provision of long maternity leave (Estevez-Abe 2006; Mandel and Semyonov 2006). Publicly provided childcare facilities, in turn, help mothers to stay in the labor market and to pursue more continuous and full-time careers. Because employers do not have to fear longer job interruptions of their female workforce, they are more likely to also employ women in skill- and knowledge-demanding positions in which (long) career interruptions are more costly (Chang 2000; Steinmetz 2012). This should mean lower vertical inequalities when there is a high provision of public childcare facilities. Additionally, outsourcing the traditional female task of unpaid childcare into paid work is likely to result in the enlargement of a highly feminized sector (Mandel and Shalev 2009). This should amplify horizontal gender differences, because women will tend to concentrate more often in these jobs (Mandel and Semyonov 2006; Steinmetz 2012). Taken together, it can be expected that a higher state- or market-driven provision of public childcare will foster horizontal gender differences at labor market entry. Country commonalities and placement Welfare regime literature (Esping-Andersen 1990; Ferrera 1996; EspingAndersen 1999; Fenger 2007) has demonstrated that states can be classified into groups or regime types that resemble each other in their social policies, thereby contributing to similar labor market outcomes and employment patterns (Nermo 2000). By applying similar approaches, there have been several attempts to build ‘gender regimes.’ These regimes aim to classify countries into groups depending on their gendered labor market outcomes and country-specific characteristics such as those discussed above (Chang 2000;

22

Short

Low state provision; market-based

Paid maternity leave

Women seen as individuals who have to handle the double burden of family and work by themselves or with the help of the market; moderate level of gender egalitarianism

Low

Medium

Traditionally medium

Low

Public childcare

Germany, France Switzerland, postSocialist Hungary

Conservative

Low

High

Medium

High

High

High

Medium

Medium/High

Medium

Italy, Spain

Mediterranean

High

Short

High

Medium, but increasing

Medium

Medium

Welfare states and family policies

Transfer- and malebreadwinner-oriented welfare state; moderate level of gender egalitarianism

High

Medium

Traditionally low, but increasing

Gender culture Universalistic workfare state with pronounced gender egalitarianism; state provides incentives for female labor force participation

Medium

High

Traditionally high

Low, but increasing

Long

Medium

Fragmented and malebreadwinner-oriented welfare state; low level of gender egalitarianism; slow development to more modern gender attitudes

High

Low

Traditionally low, but increasing

Labor market structures and employment protection legislation

Low/Medium

Low

Low; training on the job

Public employment

Egalitarian gender culture

Employment protection

Service sector employment

Female labor market participation

Stratification

Standardization

Sweden, Denmark

Social-democratic

Structure of educational and vocational training systems

Country under study

Occupational specificity

Liberal

Australia, USA, UK, post-Socialist Estonia and Russia

Regime Model

Table 1.1 Grouping of countries and major institutional settings Socialist

High

Medium

High (state was employer)

Women seen as equally obliged to work; state provides incentives for female labor force participation; moderate/ high level of gender egalitarianism

High

Low

High

Medium

High

High

Socialist Estonia, Hungary, and Russia


23

Nermo 2000; Estevez-Abe 2005; Mandel and Semyonov 2006; Steinmetz 2012; Korpi et al. 2013). Table 1.1 gives a short overview of the general orientation to be found in the different countries studied in this book. We assign countries to five groups corresponding to different welfare state models, taking into account that countries with a Socialist past have to be grouped twice. It has to be noted that the proposed classification provides a description based on ideal types and general tendencies, meaning that countries within the groups might differ in particular characteristics. In particular, the grouping locations of France and Switzerland have been discussed controversially in the literature (Sainsbury 1999; Mandel and Shalev 2009). The in-depth country analyses presented in this volume will incorporate more comprehensive discussions on the role of the national institutional settings in gender-specific patterns of labor market entry.

RESEARCH DESIGN AND ANALYTICAL STRATEGY The comparative approach of this book covers in-depth case studies of gender disparities at labor market entry in 13 countries, spanning from the more liberal Anglo-phone countries (Australia, U.S., and UK), Mediterranean European countries (Spain and Italy), continental European countries (Germany, France, Switzerland), Scandinavian countries (Sweden, Denmark), and post-socialist countries (Estonia, Russia, Hungary). Scholars with expert knowledge using most suitable data for tackling the research questions contribute the country studies. As far as possible, functionally equivalent measures and sample selections have been applied to the different countries’ dataset. Nevertheless, even if there is a large overlap in measures due to data limitations not all chapters were able to study all proposed first job outcomes. In addition, the case studies are flanked with two comparative contributions on European countries exploiting harmonized survey data from the European Labor Force Survey (Dämmrich) and the European Community Household Panel (Brzinsky-Fay). The first one analyzes horizontal gender differences and vertical gender inequalities at labor market entry, whereas the second investigates the school-to-work transitions using a sequence analysis approach. Recalling the research questions outlined in the introduction, this section presents the common research design and analytical strategy representing the conceptual fundament for the analyses pursued in both the country chapters and the comparative chapters in the present volume. It starts by describing the data requirements, populations of interest, and the definition of the first significant job. It then goes on to discuss different approaches to measuring

24


horizontal gender differences and vertical gender inequalities as well as the advantages of different approaches and the potential concerns they raise. Table 17.1 (conclusion chapter) provides a fully summary of datasets and measures employed by the various studies contained this volume. Data, samples, and definition of first labor market entry The empirical country studies in this volume use mainly longitudinal data to study the outlined research questions in different country contexts. In addition, cross-sectional datasets are exploited for comparative analyses. The population of interest covers individuals who have left initial education and entered the labor market. This excludes individuals who can be considered as being only temporarily in the labor market, such as those taking a gap year. For this reason, initial education is defined as being finished when the duration between two educational spells is more than 18 months.4 It may also be necessary to exclude adult learners from the samples, that is, individuals who are three or more years older at the time of graduating than the national median age for the specific level of education. The first significant job is defined as one that lasts at least six months after the individual has left education, that is, completed initial education. This definition also includes jobs during the period of studying, as long as the individual spent at least six months in the same job after having left initial education. Measuring horizontal gender differences The concept of horizontal gender differences basically concerns the tendency of women and men to separate across occupations, industries, and sectors. In the following, we propose several approaches to measure horizontal gender differences in the first job that are of interest from different kinds of perspectives: (1) Singelmann’s (1978) sectors classification, (2) Blossfeld’s (1987) occupational field division, and (3) an occupational job classification. The sectors classification by Singelmann (1978) organizes occupational sectors into six categories (extractive, transformative, distributive, producer, social, and personal services) and is based on branch/sector information. This classification is oriented toward industry sectors, that is, toward ‘where people are doing their work.’ The occupational field division proposed by Blossfeld (1987) defines occupations according to the field of occupational activities (production, service, and administration) and the skill level of the occupation (unskilled, skilled, and highly skilled). For horizontal differentiation, the emphasis is on the division of occupational fields oriented toward activities


25

(‘which kind of work people do’). Several chapters also use a detailed occupational job classification such as ISCO5 at the 2-digit level (excluding armed forces), another occupational variable, or a combination of occupation and sector variables to arrive at a similarly fine-grained classification of occupations. Regarding the measurement of horizontal differences, Duncan and Duncan’s (1955) dissimilarity index is well established in the literature. The Duncan index uses a fraction to report how many men or women would have to change their occupation in order to arrive at an equal distribution in the labor market. This is represented by the following formula (notation adopted from Steinmetz 2012, p. 59):

!

1 ! =# 2

* '+,

&' )' − ## & )

with occupation, sector, or occupational field j (j = 1,…, J); Fj(Mj), the number of women (men) entering in j; and F(M), the total number of female (male) labor market entrants. The Duncan index D ranges from 0 (complete similarity) to 1 (complete dissimilarity). However, the dissimilarity index is very sensitive to sample sizes and the number of categories. The IP index (Karmel and McLachlan 1988) is found to be more stable and more appropriate particularly in the comparative context. It represents the fraction of all labor market entrants who would have to change their occupation in order to arrive at an identical distribution of men and women.6 The IP index is calculated as follows:

!

1 !" = $ &+(

+ ),-

( & () − & $ &+( ) &+(

Analyses based on segregation indexes are useful to give a broad and synthetic picture of gender occupational segregation and are a good construct with which to compare the level of segregation at labor market entry across country studies. The country studies also refer to descriptive analyses and/ or regression analyses and study which specific occupations/sectors women and men are more likely to enter. Several of the country studies also examine whether segregation patterns have changed over time.

26


Measuring vertical gender inequalities Earnings (e.g., hourly wage, annual earnings, etc.) are the most frequently used variable in the economics literature for measuring vertical gender inequalities. The advantages of the earnings measure are that it has a continuous scale, allows a straightforward interpretation, and varies within occupations. However, because many datasets used in the analyses within this book do not contain information on earnings, we also consider alternative outcomes for higher occupational remuneration. Authoritative jobs can be considered as a good proxy for higher occupational remuneration, because these positions are usually more highly paid and characterized by greater responsibility and influence (Kraus and Yonay 2000; Abendroth et al. 2013). From the point of view of several theories, the gender gap in these occupations is due to differences in the hierarchical roles between men and women (in the family) that are translated into the labor market. Moreover, workplace authority is an important theoretical indicator because it might promote the reproduction of gender inequalities (e.g., if men more often occupy authoritative positions, they are naturally more often involved in hiring decisions). Because males have more access to managerial positions in general, this reproduces the vertical gender gap over time (Kanter 1997; Kraus and Yonay 2000). The empirical literature proposes different ways of constructing a variable for job authority: for example, the formal title of the job (Kraus and Yonay 2000; Budig 2002), functions and responsibilities (Kraus and Yonay 2000), or supervision (Abendroth et al. 2011). It is important to exclude entrants into self-employment here, because they might define themselves as being in an authoritative position through perceiving themselves as being their own boss. It is also possible to operationalize vertical inequalities in terms of entry into the so-called ‘managerial position’ derived from ISCO group 1 (legislators, senior officials, and managers) versus all other ISCO groups that is comparable to entry into an authoritative or leadership position. However, a shortcoming of ISCO versions older than that of 2008 (ISCO-08) is their failure to consider authoritative positions on the lower occupational scale. Blossfeld (1987) proposes using the skill demand level of occupations to examine vertical gender inequality. Compared to other vertical constructs, it emphasizes the required skill dimension of an occupation. Finally, one may refer to occupational prestige (e.g., CAMSIS, SIOPS, or a nation-specific occupational prestige scale) or occupational socioeconomic status, (e.g., ISEI, SEI, or a nation-specific occupational status scale). This outcome variable is valuable because women tend to place a higher value on jobs with higher social prestige than men because this might reflect the ‘perceived contribution


27

to society’ (Kleinjans et al. 2013, p. 4). As a result, women may accept lower wages in return for more prestigious occupations. However, when examining how horizontal gender differences mediate vertical gender inequalities, the use of prestige or status is limited. Because these continuous scaled indicators are constructed for specific occupations, they already incorporate the horizontal dimension to some extent. The common strategy for analyzing vertical inequalities at labor market entry is based on multivariate regression analyses using linear and nonlinear link functions depending on the outcome of interest. Models are presented hierarchically, starting with a baseline model assessing the total difference across genders – i.e. the ‘raw’ gender gap – on the vertical outcome. In accordance to our theoretical reasoning, additional models include consecutively variables for educational pathways and employment in order to assess the ‘net’ gender gap, which is defined in our study as the gender gap adjusting for the differential distribution of educational endowment and horizontal labor market placement across sexes. Interaction terms and further variables of interest may be included in a step-wise fashion. For example, various country studies investigate how inequalities changed over time, modelling interaction effects between gender and cohort. Studies interested in exploring whether and how gender inequalities vary over educational pathways include interactions between gender and educational qualification.

ENDNOTES 1. Authors appear in alphabetical order. 2. However, some service sector jobs, such as transport or consulting, are also traditionally male. 3. However, some public sector jobs, such as police and military, are also traditionally male. 4. This definition may be modified depending on country-specific settings and data availability. Eighteen months is suggested in order to take account of the possibility of a one-year break in education as well as the associated summer breaks. 5. ISCO stands for ‘International Standard Classification of Occupations’ standardized by the International Labor Organization. Most of the chapters throughout this book rely on the 88 version of ISCO. 6. For a critical discussion on these and other indices, see Steinmetz (2012, p. 57).

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