Despite remarkable progress toward gender equality over the past half-century, the stalled convergence in the gender wage gap after the mid-1990s remains a puzzle. This study provides new insights into this puzzle by conducting the first large-scale investigation of the uneven impact of the rise of programming in the labor market for men and women since the mid-1990s. We argue that the increasing reliance on programming has favored men’s economic status relative to women’s and therefore may help explain the slow convergence of the gender wage gap. We differentiate between two effects: (1) the composition effect, wherein men experience a greater employment growth in programming-intensive occupations relative to women, and (2) the price effect, wherein the wage returns to programming intensity increase more for men than women. Our empirical analysis documents a strong relationship between the rise of programming and the slow convergence of the gender wage gap among college graduates. Counterfactual simulations indicate that the absence of the composition and price effects would have reduced the gender wage gap over the past two decades by an additional 14.70 percent. These findings call attention to the role gender institutions play in shaping the uneven labor market impact of technological change.

中文翻译：

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编程的兴起与停滞的性别革命

尽管在过去半个世纪中在实现性别平等方面取得了显着进展，但1990年代中期以后性别工资差距的停滞收敛仍然令人困惑。这项研究通过对1990年代中期以来男女劳动力市场上编程的兴起所产生的不均衡影响进行了首次大规模调查，从而为这一难题提供了新的见解。我们认为，越来越多地依赖计划编制已经有利于男人相对于女人的经济地位，因此可能有助于解释性别工资差距的缓慢趋同。我们将两种效应区分开：（1）组成效应，其中男人在编程密集型职业中的就业增长相对于女性而言更大；以及（2）价格效应，其中男性工资回到编程强度的增长大于女性。我们的实证分析表明，编程的兴起与大学毕业生之间的性别工资差距的缓慢收敛之间有着密切的关系。反事实模拟表明，缺乏组成和价格影响，将在过去二十年中将性别工资差距另外减少14.70％。这些发现提醒人们注意性别机构在塑造技术变化对劳动力市场的不均衡影响方面所起的作用。