The purpose of the research proposed is to study the process by which gender differences in occupational achievement grow with age during the adult years. The research will focus on gender differences in labor market behavior and labor market processes that produce widening gender differences in occupational prestige and earnings over the life course. The research will study gender differences in career processes by analyzing (1) gender differences in the process of job transition and (2) gender differences in earnings growth. Two projects involving analysis of two different data sets are proposed. The first project will study the process of job change and the ways in which the rewards accruing to the two sexes from job shifts differ. The project will involve two types of analysis. First, gender differences in the rate at which job shifts occur will be analyzed. Second, gender differences in the amount of change in prestige associated with job shifts will be studied. These analyses will be based on event-history data for comparable and diverse samples of adult women and men. The data were collected in 1973-74 as part of a fifteen-year follow-up survey of high school students carried out by the principal investigator. Dynamic models of the rate of job changes and returns to job changes will be estimated using these data. The second project will analyze gender differences in earnings growth with age. Again, two types of analysis will be carried out. First, cross-sectional data on earnings and retrospective data on labor market behavior will be used to study the cumulative effect of gender differences in labor market behavior on gender differences in earnings. Second, longitudinal data will be used to analyze changes in the earnings of the two sexes over a two-and-a-half-year period. These analyses will be based on data available for national samples of adult women and men in the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP). SIPP is a longitudinal survey of households that will provide data on the present and past labor market experiences of adult women and men. Cross-sectional data on earnings will be used to estimate models of the cumulative effect of gender differences in labor market behavior over the life course. Longitudinal data on earnings will be used to estimate dynamic models of changes in earnings over time.
