The Future of Work Is Care—Can Men Adapt? | The Professor Is In
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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One of the wonderful things about doing this is we do it live. And so when I don't know things, I am naked in front of everyone.
I'm Megan Connors.
I'm Justin Wolfers.
And this is The Professor Is In. This week, we released an episode about the gender gap in recent job growth numbers that's been largely driven by an expansion of the healthcare sector. And today, we're going to discuss some questions and comments from our audience. Okay, so I would say by far kind of the topic that we had the most questions and comments about was related to the gender wage gap and how that may or may not be part of this story. So I guess the first thing I want to ask you about that is, does the gender wage gap have anything to do with this current job growth gap that we're seeing? Some people thought, you know, companies might want to hire cheaper labor by hiring women. But is that part of this story?
Let me give you two answers because I'm an economist. I can't even agree with myself. Look, the first is in economics, everything's connected to everything. The second, though, is to say that what the story we were telling was fundamentally a story about quantities, what's happening to employment. The gender wage gap, we think about it as a story of prices. Now, when I say that, again, economics teaches us quantities and prices are highly related. But in this case, I really think it's fundamentally a story about quantities because it's really about where the economy is going. One of the things that's really interesting to me from the comments, Megan, you might have views on this, is the moment you talk about a gender gap situation,
there's a real emotional resonance for some of our audience. I think they're women. Where you're like, hey, you're only telling half the story, man. And you're right. If we were talking about gender in the labor market, I didn't even scratch the surface. And so if you feel unseen by my analysis, you're probably right. And that's the bumblings of a middle-aged man. It turns out actually one of... our country's great experts on the gender wage gap is in my household, but it's not me. It's my better half, Betsy Stevenson. I think what's going on with the gender wage gap is fascinating. It's important, but it plays out over a much longer horizon. These are issues that have a lot to do with things like legislation, corporate norms, and so on.
We're looking at what's happened to employment over the last 15 months. Now, some people did try to link them. They'd say, well, as you said, women are cheaper, firms are under pressure, maybe they're going to hire more women. There's a maybe to that. One thing is firms hate paying wages all the time, not just right now. So that effect has always been there. Another is actually in the form of the answer we gave, which is it's not that we saw a shift within a certain type of employer towards women. That would be indicative of wow, women became cheaper, women became more attractive. Is it the structure of the whole economy changed? That answer tells us it's about broader macro forces rather than the gender wage gap.
Yeah. And actually you said, because that over explained the gap, there's actually been a little bit of a shift toward men in certain industries, which I feel like tells us that that's probably not what's going on here.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–5:05
2
What gender gap in recent job growth does the episode introduce?
5:05–7:14
3
Does the gender wage gap explain why more jobs went to women recently?
7:14–18:28
4
How does Simpson's paradox help explain industry vs. macro employment trends?
18:28–27:17
5
Are lower wages in care jobs driving the difficulty of attracting men?
27:17–30:27
Speakers
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