Author(s)
Todd Stinebrickner, Ralph Stinebrickner, Paul Sullivan

Gender differences in current and past job tasks may be crucial for understanding the gender wage gap. We use novel task data to address well-known measurement concerns, including that standard task measures assume away within-occupation gender differences in tasks. We find that unique measures of task-specific experience, in particular high-skilled information experience, are of particular importance for understanding the substantial widening of the wage gap early in the career. Highlighting the importance of these measures, traditional work-related proxies for gender differences in human capital accumulation are not informative because general work experience is similar by gender for our recent graduates.

JEL Codes
J16: Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
J31: Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
J62: Job, Occupational, and Intergenerational Mobility; Promotion
J24: Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
Keywords
gender gap
gender wage differentials
human capital