Gender differences in Career

Past literature has shown that job segregation by gender is one major cause of the widely observed gender pay gap and that there are also gender differences in developmental job assignment for broader job experience. This paper examines how gender differences in job assignment are associated with the gender gap in pay and promotion using the personnel records of a Japanese manufacturing company. One of the major findings is that broader work experience through job transfers across establishments are associated with a higher promotion probability and future wages for employees of both genders, but this relationship is especially strong for women, which is consistent with the selection and signaling explanations based on statistical discrimination against women. Furthermore, according to our fixed effects model estimation of wage function, broader work experience leads to higher wages for men but not for women, implying that women accept promotions with smaller pay raises than men, which is consistent with the sticky floors model.