Do Male-Female Wage Differentials Reflect Differences in the Return to Skill? Cross-City Evidence from 1980-2000

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Beaudry, Paul; Lewis, Ethan
• 署名单位: University of British Columbia; National Bureau of Economic Research; Dartmouth College
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-APPLIED ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7782
• DOI: 10.1257/app.6.2.178
• 发表日期: 2014
• 页码: 178-194
• 关键词: womens relative wages; technological-change; INEQUALITY; gap; computer; earnings

摘要

Male-female wage gaps declined significantly over the 1980s and 1990s, while returns to education increased. In this paper, we use cross-city data to explore whether, like the return to education, the change in the gender wage gap may reflect changes in skill prices induced by the diffusion of information technology. We show that male-female and education-wage differentials moved in opposite directions in response to the adoption of PCs. Our most credible estimates imply that changes in skill prices driven by PC adoption can explain most of the decline in the US male-female wage gap since 1980.