A study of gender differences in job requirements, specifically knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs), shows that women generally hold jobs with lower KSA requirements than men. However, the gap is narrowing for more recent graduates. The study analyzed jobs held immediately after college and ten years into the careers of college graduates.
The wage gap between men and women and the underrepresentation of women in senior leadership roles have been well-documented. One study introduces a new approach to exploring gender disparity in the workplace: the knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) required to perform a job. Knowledge refers to the information acquired through academic studies or formal training. Skills are acquired through experience. For example, nurses acquire the knowledge to perform certain procedures in nursing school but become more skilled in performing the procedures through actual practice. Unlike knowledge and skills, abilities are enduring attributes that are difficult to change, such as physical attributes related to physical labour and sensory attributes related to hearing and vision.
In addition to the general KSAs described above, the research study focused on two subcategories: cognitive abilities and social skills. While abilities in general relate more to manual labour jobs, cognitive abilities are required for more challenging and creative jobs. Social skills were also examined separately because, as with cognitive abilities, they have become more valued in jobs over time.
Data for the study came from two sources, the Department of Education’s Baccalaureate and Beyond Longitudinal Study (B&B) and the U.S. Department of Labor’s O*NET database. The B&B study followed the first 10 years of the careers of two cohorts of college graduates: a first cohort that entered the workforce in 1994 and was followed through 2003; and a second cohort that entered the workforce in 2009 and was followed through 2018.
The O*NET database rates the KSAs required for 974 occupations. The O*NET score for the skills subcategory of “speaking”, for example, was 40% higher for lawyers, who present arguments in court, compared to paralegals, who prepare cases (as lawyers do) but don’t argue them.
Analysing the data, the authors of the study found that women generally held jobs with lower overall KSA requirements than the jobs held by men. For the first cohort (1994–2003), this gender gap in job requirements actually grew over the course of their first 10 career years. For the second cohort (2009–2018), the gender gap for initial post-college jobs was surprisingly larger than for the first cohort, but narrowed considerably over the 10-year period. Thus, the gap for later-career jobs was smaller in 2018 than in 2003.
For both cohorts, women were more likely than men to hold jobs requiring higher levels of social skills, although somewhat unexpectedly, these jobs received a wage premium. For the more recent cohort (2009-2018), this premium for social skills was actually larger for women than for men.
While the overall gender gap in abilities narrowed for both cohorts, the gap in the cognitive abilities linked to higher-level, white collar jobs grew and was in fact greater for the second cohort.
The research showed that staying with the same employer did not narrow the gender gap for either cohort a finding that contradicts the “contact hypothesis”, which argues that maintaining contact with people will, over time, decrease discrimination.
Finally, the study showed that the gender gap for later-career jobs was smaller in 2018 than in 2003, largely because pre-job attributes of men and women college graduates (e.g., choice of college majors) had become more similar over time. However, the portion of the gap attributable to “discrimination” (defined as gender-based differences in outcomes not explained by job-relevant factors) was larger.
HR professionals aiming to address gender inequality in the workplace should determine whether women are more likely to be in jobs with lower KSA requirements than men. HR should also ensure that jobs with similar KSA content receive identical compensation, regardless of job title or the gender composition of those who typically hold the job.
Furthermore, if KSA differences exist within an organization, HR should examine whether opportunities for developing skills are equally available to men and women. Given that higher KSA jobs are often associated with better career prospects, HR can facilitate women’s advancement by investing in targeted skill development and training programs. Cross-training and job rotation can also help employees,
Especially women, broaden their skill sets and become more competitive for higher-level positions.
The KSA gender gap also highlights the importance of HR to review and audit hiring and promotion practices regularly. Practices such as using neutral language in job descriptions, conducting blind screening of applications, administering blind work sample tests, and employing structured interviews in recruitment processes can help reduce gender bias in talent management decisions.
It should be noted that the KSA gender gap was calculated to be one-half of the gender wage gap. Thus, differences in job requirements do not fully explain the persistent gender wage gap.
Shoshana Schwartz’s profile at Christopher Newport University
https://cnu.edu/people/shoshanaschwartz/
Peter Cappelli’s profile at The Wharton School
https://mgmt.wharton.upenn.edu/profile/cappelli/
Yang Yang’s profile at Rowan University
https://business.rowan.edu/faculty-staff/yang-faculty.html
Gender Differences in Job Requirements: Change Within Careers and Across Cohorts. Shoshana Schwartz, Peter Cappelli, and Yang Yang. Human Resources Management (April/May 2025).
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