Equal Pay for Equal Task: Assessing Heterogeneous Returns to Tasks across Genders

Abstract

We inspect the heterogeneous association between tasks and wages across genders using individual-level data on U.S. workers. Our findings suggest that women receive a higher wage premium when engaged in cognitive tasks and experience more contained wage losses when performing manual activities. However, a wage penalty characterizes women engaged in highly social intensive jobs. Further inspection reveals that this result is especially driven by the teamwork component of social activities.