The “Intense Job” Gender Wage Gap

A professor at University of Indiana Law School compares female law school grads with male law school grads — and comes up with some interesting results:

Here are the consistent statistical differences:

1. Female IU graduates are more likely to be married to a spouse with an intense job;
2. Spouses of female IU graduates make more money than the spouses of male alumni (note, however, that the overall household incomes remain comparable);
3. When it comes to childcare, female IU graduates are much more likely to exit or reduce their involvement in the workforce than male IU graduates.

As Professor Henderson points out, male law grads are likely to find a spouse who is a homemaker or who works a less intense job; female law school graduates, though, are more likely to marry another attorney or someone who also has an intense job. And they end up shouldering the burden of child and housecare.

Recently, there are been reports of similar data on differing marriage patterns among professional men and women (see, e.g., this NY Times story). But when examined in relation to other relevant data, the prevalence of “intense job” in female attorney households provide some useful hints on possible causal mechanisms for the persistent earnings gap among male and female attorneys, even after controlling for practice setting. A plausible theory runs something like this:

Households with male lawyers are more likely to have spouses with less demanding careers; thus, the female spouse does a disproportionate share of the domestic/childcare tasks, which frees the male attorney to focus on his career. Over the course of several years, these decisions tends to pay financial dividends for the family via the male attorney’s higher income.

In contrast, households with a female attorney are more likely to involve two intense jobs, which presents difficult childcare issues. Exiting the workforce or going part-time involves a heavy financial (and long-term career) price for both parents. So how is this issue resolved? Overwhelmingly, as the Indiana Law data show, the women shoulder this burden. The alternative scenerio is that the two-career couple hire intensive childcare help (i.e., nannies) and split the remaining duties 50/50. Arguably, even this second strategy diminishes the career prospects of both the father and the mother because neither can pursue their careers at Mach 5.

Understanding these dynamics, it is possible that female attorneys, even before they have children, may select firms and practice settings that may make these future trade-offs more bearable. This would extend the gender wage gap into the years before marriage and children–an outcome consistent with the After the JD data. Obviously, additional work needs to be done, but “intense jobs” are clearly relevant for explaining the persistent gender earnings gap.

Certainly something worth considering.

Thanks to PLN for the link.