The welfare effects of occupational segregation by gender and race: Differences across US Regions

Abstract

Using tools rooted in welfare economics, this paper explores the social welfare loss that arises from occupational segregation by gender and race in the US at the regional level. After controlling for characteristics, the losses are lower in the Northeast than in the South and West according to a wide range of indicators, including those that take into account the relative size of disadvantaged groups (incidence), the magnitude of their losses (intensity), and the inequality among those groups. The West has the highest (conditional) losses, although the intensity of the phenomenon barely differs from that in the South or Midwest.