Numerous studies have established that part of the very substantial male-female earnings gap is explained by differences in the amount of human capital workers have accumulated. (See, for example, Jacob Mincer and Haim Ofek, 1983.) Institutional factors have also been found to play a role in determining wages (David Gordon et al., 1982). Occupation further helped to explain the remaining gap, but several researchers have shown that introducing dimensions of work authority by taking into account the individual's position in the work hierarchy explains more of the variation in earnings than does occupation (Martha Hill, 1980). Last, two recent studies (Ferber and Spaeth, 1984; Spaeth, 1985) also included control over monetary resources. This variable added substantially to the explanatory power of earnings regressions, even after human capital variables, institutional factors, and several other measures of work authority had been entered. Like the other studies, Ferber and Spaeth also found that reward structures for men and women are quite different, suggesting the possible existence of discrimination. The question whether women may also be at a disadvantage in achieving control over monetary resources was not investigated. When Hill examined the process of achievement of work authority, she found substantial differences between male and female workers. In this paper we examine whether the same is true for attaining financial control. I. Data and Analysis

The study of discrimination received a major impetus in the 1960's when increasing social attention focused upon race and gender differentials in market outcomes. Gary Becker's The Economics of Discrimination (1957) strongly influenced empirical research by providing a definition of wage discrimination and suggesting a specific way in which it might operate. During the following years new theories were developed and refined in an attempt to explain why there appears to be continued discrimination in spite of market forces presumably operating against it. Similarly, a large amount of empirical work has been done to determine whether and how much discrimination actually exists, and to a lesser extent to test the implications of the various theories. Even so, the hope expressed by Becker in the preface of the second edition (1971) that our understanding of discrimination would increase so rapidly that the materials in his book would become obsolete before another decade began has clearly not been fulfilled. Here, we review what has been learned in the intervening years and suggest some fruitful directions for future research.1 The focus of this paper, like that of most of the empirical research in this area, is on determining the extent of discrimination rather than on testing alternative models of discrimination.