In What Industries Are Men and Women Employed?
The employment landscape for men and women is very different across industries.10 Companies often focus on providing either goods or services, and jobs can be categorized along these lines. For example, since 1984, women employees have been the majority in both the government and the private (non-government) service-providing industry, yet they have never represented more than 28 percent of the employees in the private goods-producing industry. And even within the service-providing industry, the proportion of women employees varies across occupations.
Figure 3 shows the percentage of women employees in all private service-producing industries. The dotted red line at the 50 percent value helps compare employment trends across these industries. For example, women have historically represented more than 70 percent of all employees in education and health services (solid purple line) and a very large majority in financial activities (dotted purple line).
By contrast, women haven't yet topped 50 percent in the professional and business services (solid green line) or the trade, transportation, and utilities (solid orange line) sectors. Traditional cultural roles or ingrained professional practices might explain these percentages.11 Finally, there are declining trends in some sectors such as information (dotted blue line) and financial activities (dotted purple line).
Why Is There an Earnings Gap Between Men and Women?
Some jobs pay better than others, and for most people earnings are determined by their occupation. The trends in the percentages of women employed across industries (described above) help explain, at least in part, the average difference in earnings between women and men.
Figure 4 shows the median usual weekly real earnings of wage and salary male workers (blue line) and female workers (red line). Median earnings are typical earnings, where half of the employees earn more than that dollar amount and half earn less than that dollar amount. The real in real earnings indicates that the effect of general and sustained rising prices—inflation—has been removed from this measure, giving the real value. Figure 4 shows women's earnings are consistently lower than men's earnings. This is known as the gender earnings gap.
Researchers can explain about 75 percent of the average gender wage gap. Unequal wages between men and women are generally attributed to differences in educational attainment, work experience, occupation, career interruption, part-time status, and overtime hours worked.12 For example, if a woman stops working for a few years to care for young children, this interruption in her career path means that she will have less work experience than her male counterparts of similar age.
Recent research suggests that the key to understanding at least part of the unexplained portion of the gender wage gap might have to do with marriage. Although the gender wage gap between never-married men and never-married women is small, married men earn much higher wages than everybody else in the labor force.13 It is not immediately clear why married men earn more than single men, but the fact that they do earn so much more than other workers helps explain, at least in part, the presence of a wage and earnings gap between genders.
Conclusion
The labor market is central to the economy because the exchange between employees and employers—labor for wages, salaries, and other benefits — underpins all production activities. Workers' gender affects their experiences in the labor market, including their decisions to participate in the market, the types of jobs they hold, their decisions to exit the market, and ultimately their earnings.
Notes
Glossary
Factors of production: The natural, human, and capital resources that are available to make goods and services. Also known as productive resources.
Labor force participation rate: The number of people who are either employed or are actively looking for work, usually expressed as a percentage. Also known as the activity rate.
Median earnings: Typical earnings. Technically, median earnings means that half of the employees earn more than that amount and half earn less than that amount.
Real value: A measure of money that removes the effect of inflation.
Recession: A period of declining real income and rising unemployment; significant decline in general economic activity extending over a period of time.
Unemployment rate: The percentage of the labor force that is willing and able to work, does not currently have a job, and is actively looking for employment.
January 2022:
Pages: 1 · 2
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