The gendered selection of activities and the reproduction of gender segregation in the labor force

This project develops and evaluates a social psychological mechanism that links cultural beliefs about gender to the reproduction of gender segregation in the labor force. The gender segregation of jobs explains most of the gender gap in wages in American society. Most previous studies of labor market outcomes have assumed that rational actors make career choices to maximize utility (often measured as income). In contrast, I argue that gender differences in career-relevant decisions are at least partially the result of cultural beliefs about gender. These beliefs are hypothesized to differentially bias the perceptions men and women have about their competence at various career-relevant tasks. To the extent that individuals act on gender differentiated perceptions when making career-relevant decisions, cultural beliefs about gender channel men and women in substantially different career directions. In the aggregate, if men and women are systematically moving in different career directions, the gender segregated labor force is necessarily reproduced. In taking this supply side approach, my goal was to highlight the constraining effects of cultural beliefs about gender on the career choice process, while avoiding blaming women for their disadvantaged position in the labor force.; I adopted a dual-method approach to evaluate the argument. First, I conducted a social psychological experiment to test the main causal hypothesis about the biasing effect of cultural beliefs about gender. I then analyzed data from the National Educational Longitudinal Study of 1988 to evaluate this same hypothesis and also to show its implication for the career-choice process in a “real world” setting. Data from both the experiment and the survey provided empirical support for the argument. Collectively, the results suggest that whenever widely shared cultural beliefs about a task advantage males, males will rate their competence at the task higher than will females performing at the same objective task level. These gender differentiated perceptions of competence are important since they were shown to differentially impact the career-relevant decisions men and women make, thereby contributing to the perpetuation of gender segregation in the labor force.