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Skill Specificity of Upper-Secondary Training Occupations and the Gender Pay Gap

Berufliche Spezifität und Einkommensunterschiede zwischen Männern und Frauen

KZfSS Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie volume 72, pages 291–315 (2020)Cite this article

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Abstract

Gender disparities in wages are still fairly large. On average, women earn less than men from the beginning of their careers. This article investigates whether young men and women with vocational education and training receive different returns for occupation-specific and general skills, a topic that has hitherto received little attention. Theoretically, we draw on a culturalist approach, as well as on the varieties of capitalism approach. The analyses are based on a combination of detailed occupation-level data on the specificity of training occupations and individual-level data from the Swiss Labour Force Survey on the incomes of upper-secondary vocational diploma holders. The results of multilevel regression models show that men’s and women’s incomes are affected by a complex interplay between gender and skill endowment. Occupation-specific vocational skills only secure a high income early in the careers of men who trained in male-typed or gender-neutral occupations. Women profit from a high proportion of general knowledge in their training. Furthermore, we find evidence for a general devaluation of female-typed skills. In sum, the findings suggest that employers’ discriminatory remuneration practices, a general devaluation of female-typed skills and young people’s rational skill investment decisions contribute jointly to the gender gap in income.

Zusammenfassung

Geschlechtsspezifische Lohnunterschiede sind nach wie vor bedeutend. Im Durchschnitt verdienen Frauen bereits ab dem Beginn ihrer Berufslaufbahn weniger als Männer. Wir untersuchen in diesem Beitrag, ob junge Frauen und Männer mit Berufsbildung unterschiedliche Renditen für berufsspezifische und allgemeine Kenntnisse erhalten, ein Thema, das in der bisherigen Forschung wenig Beachtung gefunden hat. Theoretisch stützen wir uns sowohl auf die Devaluierungstheorie als auch auf die Varieties-of-Capitalism-Theorie. Detaillierte Indikatoren für die berufliche Spezifität der Ausbildungsberufe sowie Registerdaten für das Einkommen der Befragten werden den Individualdaten der Schweizerischen Arbeitskräfteerhebung zugespielt. Die Ergebnisse der Mehrebenenmodelle zeigen, dass das Einkommen von Personen mit einer Berufsausbildung in den ersten Erwerbsjahren von einem komplexen Zusammenspiel zwischen Geschlecht und Kompetenzausstattung beeinflusst wird. Berufsspezifische Kenntnisse erhöhen das Einkommen nur für Männer mit männlich konnotierten oder geschlechtsneutralen Ausbildungsberufen. Frauen profitieren von einem hohen Anteil an allgemeinbildendem Unterricht während ihrer Ausbildung. Darüber hinaus finden wir Hinweise auf eine generelle Abwertung von weiblich konnotierten Kenntnissen. Die Ergebnisse deuten darauf hin, dass diskriminierende Vergütungspraktiken der Arbeitgeber, eine allgemeine Abwertung der weiblich konnotierten Kompetenzen und rationale Ausbildungsentscheidungen junger Menschen gemeinsam zum durchschnittlich geringeren Einkommen der Frauen beitragen.

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  • 21 July 2020

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Notes

  1. The reasons are, first, that large firms imparting a lot of firm-specific skills are infrequent in the Swiss labour market (Swiss Federal Statistical Office (BFS) 2018). Second, the high level of curriculum standardization prevents firms from emphasizing firm-specific skills.

  2. Ideally, we would restrict our sample to the year directly after labour market entry. However, because insufficient sample sizes would limit the statistical power of our analyses, we extend our observation window to the first 10 years. Tests using different cut-off points, including between 2 and 10 years of experience, show that the findings are robust irrespective of the number of years included.

  3. A small minority (N = 197) receive their diploma before their 18th birthday. We retain them in the sample because early completion, for example, owing to early primary school enrolment, is possible.

  4. No other income sources are included.

  5. Legally a working week (including vocational school and intercompany courses) cannot exceed 5.5 days.

  6. The calculations are based on the two-digit SSCO2000 classification and a pooled dataset of the SAKE waves from 2003 to 2016.

  7. The results remain stable when individuals with school-based VET are excluded.

  8. Because only a tiny proportion of VET diploma holders also hold an academic baccalaureate, we combine them with those holding a vocational baccalaureate (22 observations).

  9. Until 2010, respondents were surveyed annually for 5 consecutive years. From 2010 onwards, individuals were interviewed four times over a period of 18 months. We use only annual data for both time periods. For individuals surveyed after 2010, we therefore have a maximum of two observations.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Christian Ebner, Andreas Haupt, Britta Matthes, two anonymous reviewers and the participants of the RC28 spring meeting in Frankfurt 2019 for helpful comments. This paper was funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation as part of the project entitled “Institutional characteristics of initial vocational education and training in Switzerland: How do they affect young people’s early labour market outcomes and transitions to higher education?” (grant number 100017_156204).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Swiss Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training SFIVET, 3052, Zollikofen, Switzerland

    Miriam Grønning & Irene Kriesi

  2. Department of Social Science, University of Bern, 3012, Bern, Switzerland

    Stefan Sacchi

Authors
  1. Miriam Grønning
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  2. Irene Kriesi
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  3. Stefan Sacchi
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Correspondence to Miriam Grønning.

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Online-Anhang: www.kzfss.uni-koeln.de/sites/kzfss/pdf/Gronning_et_al.pdf

The original version of this article was revised: Figure two was incomplete in the original version.

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Grønning, M., Kriesi, I. & Sacchi, S. Skill Specificity of Upper-Secondary Training Occupations and the Gender Pay Gap. Köln Z Soziol 72 (Suppl 1), 291–315 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11577-020-00678-z

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Keywords

  • Gender wage disparities
  • Vocational specificity
  • General education
  • Occupational gender segregation
  • Vocational education and training
  • Varieties of capitalism
  • Devaluation theory

Schlüsselwörter

  • Geschlechtsspezifische Lohnunterschiede
  • Berufliche Spezifität
  • Allgemeinbildung
  • Berufliche Geschlechtersegregation
  • Berufsbildung
  • Varieties of Capitalism
  • Devaluierungstheorie