PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Cortes, Guido Matias
AU  - Jaimovich, Nir
AU  - Siu, Henry E.
TI  - The Growing Importance of Social Tasks in High-Paying Occupations
AID  - 10.3368/jhr.58.5.0121-11455R1
DP  - 2023 Sep 01
TA  - Journal of Human Resources
PG  - 1429--1451
VI  - 58
IP  - 5
4099  - http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/58/5/1429.short
4100  - http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/58/5/1429.full
SO  - J Hum Resour2023 Sep 01; 58
AB  - We document that, since 1980, higher-paying occupations in the United States have experienced increases in the importance of tasks requiring social skills compared to lower-paying ones. Economic theory indicates that the occupational sorting of workers depends on their comparative advantage in performing occupational tasks. Hence, changes in the relative importance of tasks across occupations change sorting. We document that the increasing relative importance of social tasks in high-paying occupations can account for an important fraction of the increased sorting of women relative to men towards these occupations in recent decades.