Between 1967 and 1979 the share of 20- and 21-year-old women who expected to be employed at 35 jumped from 35% to 80%.Expectations also matter for employers.Although the pay gap narrowed in the early 1900s, the portion driven by discrimination, rather than job type, grew.An important factor, says Ms Goldin, was changes in how payment was decided.Wages used to be tied to output―how many clothes were knitted, for instance.But after industrialisation, workers were increasingly paid periodically, in part because measuring an individual’s output became trickier.Therefore more ambiguous factors grew in importance, such as ideas about how long a worker would stay on the job.This penalised women, who were expected to quit when they had children.Since around 2005 the wage gap has hardly budged.Here Ms Goldin’s work questions popular narratives that continue to blame wage discrimination.Instead, in a book published in 2021, Ms Goldin blames “greedy” jobs, such as being a consultant or lawyer, which offer increasing returns to long (and uncertain) hours.
