Why do “female” occupations pay less? A longitudinal study

Abstract

During the last decades, female participation in the labor force has increased significantly in Brazil, going from 18.5% in 1970 to 48.9% in 2010. Despite this, occupational gender segregation persists and may be determinant to explain the gender pay gap. This study aims to understand why female occupations have lower pay. In order to test the sociological theory of female work devaluation we evaluate the impact of the transition between different occupations regarding the sex composition on the salary of workers in the Brazilian labor market. To that end, we use a model with fixed effects with microdata from the 2012-2019 editions of the PNAD Contínua (IBGE). The typology of occupational integration proposed by Oliveira (2001) is adopted to classify occupations as predominantly female, predominantly male, or integrated. Results show that workers experience a decrease in wages when moving to a female occupation, hence supporting the devaluation theory. Also, the highest salaries are observed in integrated occupations, indicating that the relationship between occupational sex composition and pay is a non-linear one.

Keywords:
Occupational gender segregation; Gender pay gap; Brazilian labor market; Devaluation theory