ABSTRACT
There are three types of discrimination that can produce wage differences between men and women. Women are differentially allocated to occupations and establishments that pay lower wages. Occupations held primarily by women are paid lower wages than those held primarily by men, although skill requirements and other wage relevant factors are the same. Women receive lower wages than men within a given occupation and establishment. We call this process within-job wage discrimination. The remaining wage gap at the occupation-establishment level can reasonably be interpreted as an estimate of the upper bound on the amount of within-job wage discrimination, the gap one would observe in the absence of occupation-establishment sex segregation. Two issues arise in the identifications of allocative processes as responsible for the gender wage gap. The first is whether segregation patterns are due primarily to discrimination or to differences in productive capacities. The second issue concerns the role of supply-side sources of differential attainment between men and women.
