Occupational Prestige and Gender Wage Gap: A Research Proposal

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Running Head: RESEARCH PROPOSAL
Background and context
Occupational prestige- refers to the general view of one’s social standing on ground of their
professional position rather than other unique aspects and abilities held by the individual.
(HRZONE, 2018).
Nevertheless, occupational prestige attached to certain jobs and careers vary over time, owing to
shift in external factors. These factors include:
i. Public perception
ii. Importance of the career
In a research by Harris poll in 2007, it was noted that, prestige is attached to effectual nature of
the job on a given societal setting and therefore: teachers, firefighters, and scientists were ranked
ahead of bankers and entertainers in terms of prestige. (Harris poll, 2007)
However, occupational segregation more or less leads to gender wage gap. In their paper,
Kristin, Carl and Dukes argue that, “if women prefer occupations with higher occupational
prestige, they tend to earn less due to the compensating wage differentials” (Kleinjins, Krassel &
Dukes, 2017), this is despite increased women education and labor contribution.
Research question:
Do the choice of an occupation having high occupational prestige lead to lower earning
among women?

Running Head: Research proposal
Hypotheses
Null hypothesis
H0- Women who choose jobs with high occupational prestige, do not earn lower than their male
counterparts
Alternative hypotheses
H2- Women who choose jobs with high occupational prestige, earn lower than their male counter
parts
H3- Occupational prestige is linked to the kind of career an individual chooses.
H3- Higher income does not necessarily reflect high occupational prestige
Objective and outcome
Objective
The main objective of the research is to identify how gender influences occupation wage gap and
the role of occupational prestige in it. Other objectives include identification of the link between
career and occupational prestige. Moreover, whether high income reflects high occupational
prestige
Expected outcome
The expected outcomes involve establishing that there is a relationship between the gender of an
individual, occupational prestige and wage. In addition, that, different careers have different
occupational prestige.

Running Head: Research proposal
Data
Data used for the research was collected from 103 individuals from different occupations. It has
7 columns of:
i. Occupation
ii. Income
iii. Education
iv. Gender(women)
v. Prestige
vi. Census
vii. Type of occupation
The type of occupation is divided into:
i. Professional and managerial
ii. Blue-collar(bc)
iii. White-collar(wc)
Proposed data analysis
In exploring the research question, using suitable software, preferably R, two statistical tests are
proposed for data analysis: