Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/339319 
Year of Publication: 
2026
Series/Report no.: 
Working Paper No. 2026:7
Publisher: 
Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy (IFAU), Uppsala
Abstract: 
Gender gaps in earnings persist even among high-skilled workers, in part because men and women often perform different tasks within and across jobs. We study a rare setting in which high-skilled men and women perform the same tasks under comparable conditions, allowing us to assess gender differences in productivity and pay without confounding from task or client allocation. Using administrative data from the Swedish Public Employment Service between 2003 and 2014, we exploit a rotation scheme that quasirandomly assigns job seekers to employment caseworkers. We find that productivity differences are small: job seekers assigned to female and male caseworkers exit unemployment at similar rates, and hourly wages-conditional on productivity-are nearly identical across genders, leaving little scope for wage differences driven by discrimination or bargaining in this setting. Despite this, female caseworkers earn about 8 percent less per year, entirely due to differences in contracted and actual hours worked. We also find suggestive evidence that male caseworkers are more likely to be promoted than equally productive female colleagues. Taken together, the results show that when tasks are standardized and performance is measured objectively, gender differences in productivity and hourly pay are minimal, while gaps in annual earnings and career progression persist.
Subjects: 
Gender Gaps
Productivity
Wages
Task Allocation
JEL: 
D84
I12
J12
J21
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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