Scholars have found that as the proportion of female workers in an occupation grows, wages generally decline. Yet, we know little about how this gender inequality intersects with other labor market inequalities. This study evaluates the feminization-wage relationship of an increasingly economically polarized post-2000 US labor market. First, I hypothesize that the negative effect of feminization on wages has diminished in high-skilled occupations due to the declining prejudice against (highly educated) women and increasing requirements for higher education, which functions as a form of social closure. Second, because of the increasing demand for “people skills” in higher-skilled occupations and their association with women, workers in higher-skilled occupations that require these skills may experience positive effects of feminization on wages. Not all people skills, however, are associated with women and similarly rewarded. Thus, I examine three people skills—persuasion, managerial, and sociability—that have different gender stereotypes. I test hypotheses using occupational-level fixed-effects models with individual-level data from the American Community Survey 2003–2019 (N = 15,996,526) and time-varying occupational-level data from the Occupational Information Network 2003–2019 (N = 460). Results show that for workers in occupations requiring more than sixteen 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 moderation effect is not found for sociability and managerial skills, which are associated with women and men, respectively. This study calls for greater attention to how labor market polarization has shaped gender inequality.

中文翻译：

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贬值是为了谁？2003-2019 年经济两极分化劳动力市场中的女性化和工资


学者们发现，随着女性工人在某个职业中的比例增加，工资通常会下降。然而，我们对这种性别不平等如何与其他劳动力市场不平等交织在一起知之甚少。本研究评估了 2000 年后经济日益两极化的美国劳动力市场的女性化-工资关系。首先，我假设女性化对工资的负面影响在高技能职业中已经减弱，因为对（受过高等教育的）女性的偏见下降和对高等教育的要求增加，这起到了社会封闭的一种形式。其次，由于高技能职业对“人际交往技能”的需求不断增加，并且它们与女性的联系，需要这些技能的高技能职业的工人可能会体验到女性化对工资的积极影响。然而，并非所有的人际交往技能都与女性相关，并得到类似的奖励。因此，我研究了三种人际交往技能——说服力、管理和社交能力——它们具有不同的性别刻板印象。我使用职业水平的固定效应模型和 2003-2019 年美国社区调查的个人水平数据 （N = 15,996,526） 和来自 2003-2019 年职业信息网络的时变职业水平数据 （N = 460） 来检验假设。结果表明，对于从事需要 16 年以上教育的职业的工人，女性化与更高的工资相对应。此外，在对性别中立的人际交往技能、说服力要求很高的职业中，积极的女性化-工资关系更大。这种调节效应不适用于社交能力和管理技能，它们分别与女性和男性相关。 这项研究呼吁人们更多地关注劳动力市场两极分化如何塑造性别不平等。