Spatial Routes to Gender Wage (In)equality: Regional Restructuring and Wage Differentials by Gender and Education*

: I examine how different dimensions of restructuring are related to gender wage inequality. The analysis extends research on regional wage differentials to include differentials between men and women in two educational groups at opposite ends of the educational hierarchy. Relative wages across regional labor markets in the United States are modeled in a multilevel framework as outcomes of variation in economic conditions associated with restructuring. Using microdata from the 1990 PUMS-A 5 percent census files, as well as independent sources of macro-data on counties, I show that the direction of wage changes associated with each dimension of restructuring generally does not differ by gender or education. Wages are either higher or lower than the average labor market for all groups. However, there are significant differences in relative wages by gender and many important differences between the two educational groups in the spatial distribution of gender wage inequality. Several “spatial routes” to gender wage equality emerge that differ from the dominant temporal explanations of the declining gender wage gap and differ according to the educational background of workers.

[1]  A. Chandler,et al.  Regional Advantage: Culture and Competition in Silicon Valley and Route 128 , 1994 .

[2]  Yu Xie,et al.  Regional Variation in Earnings Inequality in Reform-Era Urban China , 1996, American Journal of Sociology.

[3]  Julie White.  Women and unions , 1980 .

[4]  D. Howell,et al.  Changes in the Structure and Quality of Jobs in the United States: Effects by Race and Gender, 1973–1990 , 1995 .

[5]  J. Devine.  Lean and Mean , 1996 .

[6]  Geraldine Pratt,et al.  Dynamic Dependencies: A Geographic Investigation of Local Labor Markets* , 1992 .

[7]  J. Kodras,et al.  Restructured Regions and Families: The Feminization of Poverty in the U.S. , 1990 .

[8]  Lawrence R. Mishel,et al.  The State of Working America , 1991 .

[9]  R. Bednarzik.  An Analysis of U.S. Industries Sensitive to Foreign Trade, 1982-87 , 1993 .

[10]  Jamie Peck,et al.  Reconceptualizing the local labour market , 1989 .

[11]  Paul Hadlock.  High Technology Employment: Another View. , 1991 .

[12]  J. Lorence.  Service Sector Growth and Metropolitan Occupational Sex Segregation , 1992 .

[13]  K. David.  Life without father. , 1971, Nursing times.

[14]  High Technology Employment: Another View: A Novel Definition of High Technology Yields Some Interesting Statistics on Employment, Pay, and Projected Growth in This Vital Component of American Industry , 1991 .

[15]  R. Waldinger,et al.  Still the Promised City? African Americans and New Immigrants in Postindustrial New York. , 1997 .

[16]  D. Massey.  Spatial Divisions of Labour , 1995 .

[17]  P. Morrison.  Segmentation theory applied to local, regional and spatial labour markets , 1990 .

[18]  C. Gabriel.  Black Women and White Women in the Professions , 1994 .

[19]  R. Rosenfeld,et al.  Women's Occupations and Local Labor Markets: 1950 to 1980 , 1989 .

[20]  C. Guarneri.  Cornell University Press , 1991 .

[21]  R. W. Riche.  High Technology Today and Tomorrow: A Small Slice of the Employment Pie. , 1983 .

[22]  J. Peck.  Work-Place: The Social Regulation of Labor Markets , 1996 .

[23]  S. Christopherson,et al.  Flexibility in the US Service Economy and the Emerging Spatial Division of Labour , 1989 .

[24]  A. Oswald,et al.  The Wage Curve , 1989 .

[25]  C. Goldin,et al.  Understanding the Gender Gap: An Economic History of American Women , 1990 .

[26]  Allen J. Scott,et al.  Low-wage Workers in a High-technology Manufacturing Complex: The Southern Californian Electronics Assembly Industry , 1992 .

[27]  A. Wellington.  Changes in the Male/Female Wage Gap, 1976-85 , 1993 .

[28]  Lawrence F. Katz,et al.  Searching for the Effect of Immigration on the Labor Market , 1996 .

[29]  Wallace Clement,et al.  Relations of Ruling: Class and Gender in Postindustrial Societies , 1994 .

[30]  D. Angel,et al.  Intermetropolitan Wage Disparities and Industrial Change , 1991 .

[31]  Structural Determinants of Occupational Shifts for Males and Females in the U.S. Labor Market , 1995 .

[32]  J. Lorence.  Growth in Service Sector Employment and MSA Gender Earnings Inequality: 1970–1980 , 1991 .

[33]  W. Frey.  The New Geography of Population Shifts: Trends Toward Balkanization , 1995 .

[34]  D. Harvey,et al.  The Condition of Postmodernity , 2020, The New Social Theory Reader.

[35]  Linda McDowell,et al.  Life without Father and Ford: The New Gender Order of Post-Fordism , 1991 .

[36]  Walter Bernard Mccormick,et al.  LEAN AND MEAN , 1998 .

[37]  K. England.  Suburban pink collar ghettos : The spatial entrapment of women? , 1993 .

[38]  Mark Abrahamson,et al.  Occupational Sex Segregation in Metropolitan Areas , 1987 .

[39]  J Mcnichol.  WORK IN THE FAST LANE , 1991 .

[40]  M. Tienda,et al.  The impact of changing employment opportunity on gender and ethnic earnings inequality , 1988 .

[41]  Angela Dale,et al.  Geographical Variation in Female Labour Force Participation: An Application of Multilevel Modelling , 1992 .

[42]  Francine D. Blau,et al.  Rising wage inequality and the U.S. gender gap , 1994 .

[43]  Lynn A. Karoly,et al.  The trend in inequality among families, individuals, and workers in the United States , 1992 .

[44]  B. Reskin,et al.  Job Queues, Gender Queues: Explaining Women's Inroads into Male Occupations , 1990 .

[45]  R. W. Burgess,et al.  BUREAU OF THE CENSUS , 1992 .

[46]  T. DiPrete,et al.  Socioeconomic Change and Occupational Location for Successive Cohorts of American Male and Female Workers , 1995 .

[47]  R. Albelda.  Occupational Segregation by Race and Gender, 1958–1981 , 1986 .

[48]  Marta Tienda,et al.  Industrial Restructuring, Gender Segregation, and Sex Differences in Earnings , 1987 .

[49]  Kelvyn Jones,et al.  Specifying and estimating multilevel models for geographical research , 1991 .

[50]  B. Hirsch,et al.  Wages and Gender Composition: Why do Women's Jobs Pay Less? , 1995, Journal of Labor Economics.

[51]  R. Topel.  Regional labor markets and the determinants of wage inequality , 1994 .