Is Working Paying Off? An Anaysis of Labor Market Commitment and Gender Pay Parity

Date of Award

2006

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Social Sciences

First Advisor

Strobel, Frederick

Keywords

Gender, Human Capital, Wages

Area of Concentration

Economics

Abstract

In an effort to understand the slowing in convergence ratios relating to gender pay parity, this paper looks to trends in labor market experience and educational attainment to analyze the labor market participation decision. Specifically, as human capital characteristics by gender become more similar, neoclassical economic theory points to a narrowing of gender differences in earnings. Though this narrowing is present in the data, the rate of convergence is well below that of convergence in productivity enhancing characteristics. Economic work on the issue highlights the division of labor within the home as a primary obstacle to marketplace participation and, consequently, to pay parity. Unfortunately, this is also where most economic work ends. A goal of this paper is to present the social division of labor as reinforced by labor market behavior which helps to uncover the role the marketplace has in maintaining gender pay disparity. To that end, the analysis suggests that both the government and private employers have an incentive to combat the division of labor by adjusting remuneration in the market.

Rights

This bibliographic record is available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication. The New College of Florida, as creator of this bibliographic record, has waived all rights to it worldwide under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights, to the extent allowed by law.

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