Age, Wage, and Job Placement: Older Women’s Experiences Entering the Retail Sector

Abstract

Older women seeking employment often find opportunities limited to low-wage jobs, such as those in retail. We report findings about job placement and starting wages for hourly workers hired at a women’s apparel retailer from August 2006 to December 2009. We examine competing hypotheses regarding the role of age in explaining women’s job placement and starting wages. Although newly hired women age 55+ earn higher wages and are placed in higher-quality jobs than the youngest women (ages 18–22), they are less likely to be placed in better-quality jobs than their midlife counterparts. Overall, wage differences are largely explained by job quality.

KEYWORDS:

• human capital
• job placement
• low-wage jobs
• older workers
• retail
• stereotypes
• women’s employment

Notes

1. Administrative data received from this firm include two additional job categories: store managers and stock associates. Store managers are dropped from the analysis because they are salaried employees. Stock associates are dropped because there are very few in the sample (n = 50), and the nature of the job is substantially different from that of assistant managers and sales associates, making it a less-than-useful group for comparison.

2. During this 3.5-year period, there were four men hired as assistant managers and 24 men hired as sales associates. There was no significant difference in the placement of these men in jobs as compared to female new hires.