The Psychology of Gender 4th Edition

Paid Worker Role and Health 463

Why do the occupations men enter pay

more than the occupations women enter?

One theory is that sex is used to determine

the wage of an occupation. The proportion of

women in a given occupation is directly and

inversely related to the wage (Dunn, 1996). In

other words, a job is worth less if women are

more likely than men to hold it. In fact, people

assume that jobs inhabited by men pay more

than jobs inhabited by women—a phenome-

non referred to as thesalary estimation effect.

Two studies—one of college students and one

of community members—showed that when

given a series of jobs to which male or female

names are randomly assigned, respondents

estimate higher salaries for jobs associated

with male names than jobs associated with

female names (Williams, Paluck, & Spencer-

Rodgers, 2010). Male respondents were more

likely to show the salary estimation effect than

females. Interestingly, the salary estimation

effect was unrelated to awareness of the actual

pay gap. Instead, implicit stereotypes regard-

ing gender were associated with the salary

estimation effect. Using an Implicit Associa-

tion Test, respondents who linked being male

with wealth were more likely to show the sal-

ary estimation effect. In another study, college

students were provided with job descriptions

that contained the same educational qualifi-

cations, same skills, and same responsibilities

but the gender-related nature of the industry

was varied to be masculine (e.g., automo-

tive) or feminine (e.g., gourmet food; Alksnis,

Desmarais, & Curtis, 2008). As shown in

Figure 12.11, both men and women assigned

higher pay to jobs (clerk in Figure 12.11a and

editor in 12.11b) assumed to be held by male

employees than female employees.

The resolution to this issue is thecom-

parable worth policy, which states that men

and women in different jobs should be paid

the same wage for comparable work. The

and men work in different occupations, and

different occupations have different salaries.

Many factors contribute to occupational seg-

regation. Traditional gender role is one factor.

As shown in Figure 12.10, traditional gender

roles are related to more income for men but

less income for women (Judge & Livingston,

2008). One reason is that traditional gender

roles are related to occupational segregation.

Men with traditional gender roles are likely

to be in higher-paying occupations inhab-

ited by men, such as technology, and women

with traditional gender roles are likely to be

in lower-paying occupations inhabited by

women, such as service industries. Sex segre-

gation of occupations declined in the 1970s

as women moved into occupations that had

traditionally been inhabited by men, such as

medicine and law. However, there has been

less change in occupational segregation in the

1980s and 1990s, and after the turn of the cen-

tury. Occupational integration does not solve

all the problems. Even if similar numbers of

women and men are in a particular occupa-

tion, they often hold different positions.

• 1 SD
  More Egalitarian

+ 1 SD

More Traditional

15,000

17,000

19,000

Annual Earnings

27,000

21,000

23,000

25,000 Men

Women

FIGURE 12.10 Traditional gender roles are

strongly related to more income for men; tradi-

tional gender roles are slightly related to less in-

come for women.

Source: Adapted from Judge and Livingston (2008).

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