1997/05/01 by Tony Tam · 2 citations
Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Psychology · Social Sciences · #Capital (architecture) #Currency #Current Population Survey #Demographic economics #Demography #Devaluation #Economic growth #Economics #Gender, Labor, and Family Dynamics #Geography #Human capital #Inequality #Intergenerational and Educational Inequality Studies #Labor market dynamics and wage inequality #Labour economics #Monetary economics #Occupational segregation #Population #Psychology #Sociology #Wage #Wage inequality
paper · doi:10.1086/231129
openalex publication_date 1997/05/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
This article examines two hypotheses of the wage effects of occupational sex composition in the United States: the devaluation and the specialized human capital hypothesis. With data from an expanded version of the May 1988 Current Population Survey, this study finds that differences in the length of specialized training across occupations and industries, together with a few demographic and human capital attributes, are able to completely explain all of the sex composition effects among women and men, whites and blacks. The central results are difficult to reconcile with the devaluation hypothesis but are remarkably consistent with the specialized human capital hypothesis.