Culture’s Gendered Consequences: The Relationship Between Local Cultural Conditions and the Gender Wage Gap

Local economic conditions have been found to be highly influential in shaping patterns of gender inequality across the United States. Less attention, however, has been directed toward exploring the role of cultural characteristics, such as gender norms toward women’s leadership and family divisions of labor. Using data from the American Community Survey and the General Social Survey, we examine the relationship between local gender norms and levels of the gender wage gap across US commuting zones. Results indicate that gender egalitarian family norms predict lower gender wage gaps, while norms toward women’s suitability for leadership are unrelated to wage inequality between women and men. Investigating the mechanisms by which local norms relate to gender wage gaps, we find that family gender norms are unrelated to occupational gender segregation. Instead, egalitarian gender norms toward the family division of labor are associated with greater within-occupation wage equality, indicating that women and men in the same occupations have more equitable opportunities and compensation in contexts where family expectations are shared equally.