VIRTUAL EVENT: Does Rosie like riveting? Male and female occupational choices
In this webinar, Dr Grace Lordan investigates the extent to which different tastes regarding job content can explain why men and women tend to sort into different occupations.

Occupational segregation and pay gaps by gender remain large, while many constraints believed to be responsible for these gaps seem to have weakened over time.
As a potential solution to this puzzle, Grace Lordan explores the possibility that women and men have different tastes for the content of the work they do.
She examines how job satisfaction and job mobility relate to different dimensions of people’s work. She labels these dimensions as: ‘people’, ‘brains’ and ‘brawn’.
Grace found that women value jobs that are relatively high on ‘brain’ and ‘people’ content and low on ‘brawn’. Men are found to be similar but have much weaker preferences. Further analyses suggest that these findings do not just reflect differences in firm-level work environments.
Moreover, the findings are supported by a choice experiment with high school students, in which students’ hypothetical choices roughly mimic the actual behaviour of adults in the labour market.
QSS seminar series
In this weekly Quantitative Social Science (QSS) seminar series, speakers present research that falls under the broad umbrella of quantitative social science.
Links
- QSS seminar series
- Social Research Institute
- Quantitative Social Science
- Centre for Longitudinal Studies
Image: Amy Hirschi via Unsplash
Grace's research is focused on understanding why some individuals succeed over others because of factors beyond their control. Grace is also Founding Director of The Inclusion Initiative.
Further information
Ticketing
Pre-booking essential
Cost
Free
Open to
All
Availability
Yes