The influx of women into legal professions: An economic analysis

Monthly Labor Review

Volumn 125, Issue 8, 2002, Pages 14-24

  Baker, Joe G ^a  

^a SOUTHERN UTAH UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 0042186982     PISSN: 00981818     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (30)

1. Marjorie Williams, "A Women's Place is at the Bar," The Washington Post, April 4, 2001, p. A23.
2. These data are from the National Center for Education Statistics, as reported on the National Science Foundation CASPAR Web site www.nsf.gov/sbe/srs/stats.htm.
3. In 1966, social science (10.9 percent female) and psychology (20.9 percent female) doctorates are fields that already had high percentages of women; this high rate of feminization in the base year limits the potential growth in the index number.
4. Sherwin Rosen, "The Market for Lawyers," Journal of Law and Economics, October 1992, p. 218.
5. See the Current Population Survey, Bureau of Labor Statistics, on the Internet at http://data.bls.gov/servlet/SurvevOutputServlet
6. These data are from the National Center for Education Statistics, as reported on the National Science Foundation CASPAR Web site www.nsf.gov/sbe/srs/stats.htm.
7. Wynn R. Huang, "Gender Differences in the Earnings of Lawyers," Columbia Journal of Law & Social Problems, vol. 30, 1997, p. 267.
8. Ibid.
9. Paul W. Mattessich and Cheryl W. Heilman, "The Career Paths of Minnesota Law School Graduates: Does Gender Make a Difference?" University of Minnesota Law Review, vol. 9, 1990, p. 59.
10. Rosen, Journal of Law and Economics.
11. Robert L. Nelson, "The Futures of American Lawyers; A Demographic Profile of a Changing Profession in a Changing Society," Case Western Reserve Law Review, vol. 44, 1994, p. 379.
12. John Hagan and Fiona Kay, Gender in Practice (New York, Oxford University Press, 1995.)
13. Robert G. Wood, Mary E. Corcoran, and Paul N. Courant, "Pay Differences Among the Highly Paid: The Male-Female Earnings Gap in Lawyers' Salaries," Journal of Labor Economics, vol. 11, 1993, p. 417.
14. Richard H. Sander and E. Douglas Williams, "Why Are There So Many Lawyers? Perspectives on a Turbulent Market," Law & Social Inquiry, vol. 14, 1989, p. 431.
15. The NSCG is a re-survey of 1990 Census recipients who reported a bachelor degree or higher from any source. More information about the NSCG survey methodology can be found on the Internet at http:// www.nsf.gov/sbe/srs/snscg/cgmeth.htm
16. 1993 National Survey of College Graduates.
17. Ibid.
18. Gary S. Becker, "A Theory of the Allocation of Time," Economic Journal, vol. 75, 1965.
19. Ibid., p. 493.
20. "Married with children" composes the following percentages of women by professional degree (all career ages): law, 40.9 percent; M.B.A., 42.9 percent; M.D., 47.6 percent; and Ph.D., 38 percent.
21. It should be noted that many M.D.s are still in residency during early career and have relatively low earnings.
22. This finding is very close to Wood et al. (1993), who found that 5 years after graduation female Michigan Law graduates earned 90 percent of males.
23. The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that the average workweek for all professionals in 1997 was 45.7 hours for men and 43.3 hours for women. See Employment and Earnings, vol. 45 (Bureau of Labor Statistics, January 1998), table 23.
24. These data are from the 1990 census.
25. Wood et al. (1993) found little earnings penalty to female law graduates who took time off to care for children. However, they found that part-time work had a "permanent, and sizeable reduction in earnings capacity" for women.
26. Women on average have shorter working lives than men. 1994 data indicate that at age 25, female college graduates have an expected working life of 31.8 years compared to 35.8 years for men. See Ronald G. Ehrenberg and Robert S. Smith, Modern Labor Economics (New York, Addison-Wesley, 2000), table 9.2.
27. Peterson's Graduate Programs in Business, Health, Information Studies, Law, and Social Work, (Princeton, NJ: Peterson's Guides, 1999). These tuition data were deflated to 1993 values and weighted by private and public enrollment in M.B.A. programs for 1993.
28. It should be noted that the results are not very sensitive to this assumption for two reasons: first, direct costs are less than 10 percent of costs of training; and second, the returns to investment are very low for graduate and professional school, and relatively insensitive to direct costs estimates.
29. Not all career working lives are the same, and data show that women have shorter careers to recover human capital investments than men (see endnote 26). However, discounting reduces the present value of earnings beyond 35 years to such small amounts that this assumption is not critical.
30. Ronald G. Ehrenberg, "The Flow of New Doctorates," Journal of Economic Literature, vol. 30, 1992, table 2.3.