A new paper published online in the Journal of Population Economics finds that women use their cognitive skills less than men even within the same occupation; but there is no evidence of workplace discrimination against women.

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Gender differences in the skill content of jobs
by Rita Pető & Balázs Reizer

Published ONLINE FIRST 2021: Journal of Population Economics OPEN ACCESS.

Author Abstract: There is significant heterogeneity in actual skill use within occupations even though occupations are differentiated by the task workers should perform during work. Using data on 12 countries which are available both in the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies survey and International Social Survey Program, we show that women use their cognitive skills less than men even within the same occupation. The gap in skill intensity cannot be explained by differences in worker characteristics or in cognitive skills. Instead, we show that living in a partnership significantly increases the skill use of men compared with women. We argue that having a partner affects skill use through time allocation as the gender penalty of partnered women is halved once we control for working hours and hours spent on housework. Finally, we do not find evidence of workplace discrimination against women.

Journal of Population Economics
Access to the recently published Volume 34, Issue 2, April 2021.
Workshop presentation of key articles with full video.

LEAD ARTICLE OF ISSUE 2, 2021:
Measuring gender attitudes using list experiments
by M. Niaz Asadullah, Elisabetta De Cao, Fathema Zhura Khatoon, and Zahra Siddique
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