Cross-sectional analysis reveals a feminine gender role wage penalty in US employees, indicating structured public sector compensation mitigates bias.
Key Points
To examine whether feminine gender role expression contributes to unexplained wage disparities and to determine whether this relationship varies between public and private employment sectors.
Analyzed a matched sample of full-time employees located in large metropolitan areas across the United States (n=1,114).
Conducted a Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition analysis and ordinary least squares multi-group regressions to evaluate wage outcomes across gender roles and employment sectors.
Feminine gender role expression was a significant negative predictor of compensation, with individuals exhibiting feminine roles earning 2.86% lower wages than their counterparts.
In sector-stratified models, feminine gender role expression was significantly negatively associated with wages among private sector workers, but was not a significant predictor among public sector workers.