Changes in Returns to Task-Specific Skills and Gender Wage Gap

What role did skilled-biased technological change play in narrowing the gender wage gap? To answer that question this paper constructs a task-based Roy model in which workers possess a bundle of basic skills and occupations are characterized as a bundle of basic tasks. The model is estimated using the task data from the Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT) and the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID). The main empirical finding is that men have more motor skills than women, but the returns to motor skills have dropped significantly, accounting for a major part of the narrowed gender wage gap from 1980 to 2000.