Dissertation Chapter, Devaluation for Whom, Accepted at Social Forces

My dissertation chapter, "Devaluation for Whom? Feminization and Wages in An Economically Polarized Labor Market, 2003–2019" has been accepted for publication at Social Forces! This paper re-examines the well-studied negative effect of the increasing proportion of female workers in an occupation (occupational feminization) in the post-2000 labor market. I hypothesize that the effect of feminization on wages has been mitigated in high-skilled occupations and varies in occupations demanding different gender-stereotyped people skills. I test hypotheses using occupational-level fixed-effects models with individual-level data from the American Community Survey (ACS) 2003–2019 (N = 15,996,526) and time-varying occupational-level data from the Occupational Information Network (O*NET) 2003–2019 (N = 460). Results show that for workers in occupations requiring more than 16 years of education, feminization corresponds with higher wages. Additionally, the positive feminization–wage relationship is larger in occupations with a high demand for a gender-neutral people skill, persuasion.

This paper builds on my previous paper studying the relationship between industrial feminization and earnings, with a focus on China. (Un)surprisingly, both paper find that the effect of feminization on wages (earnings) varies and has been mitigated in some high-skilled work. These findings highlight the increasing higher educational attainment among women. It is interesting to capture this trend in both papers because gender inequality appears to be diverging, with more progress in the U.S. and regression in China. Recent studies have indicated early signs of exacerbated gender-based discrimination since the implementation of the two- and three-child policies. One of my future research directions will further explore these changes.