November 2000

IZA DP No. 217: Occupational Gender Composition and Wages in Sweden

published as 'Occupational gender composition and the gender wage gap in Sweden' in: Research in Labor Economics, 2008, 28, 353-369

We estimate the relationship between wages and occupational gender segregation in Sweden. Because of high wage equality in Sweden compared to the U.S., we expect a lower wage penalty of job femaleness in Sweden than in the U.S. Our results supports this hypothesis. We also investigate how the unexplained gender wage gap vary across occupations and find that this gap is smallest in male dominated jobs and largest in female dominated jobs. Finally, we investigate whether the female wage-experience profiles are different across occupations. Our results indicate that women have flatter wage-experience profiles in female dominated occupations than in male dominated occupations.