We exploit the Norwegian oil boom as a natural experiment to analyze the distributional consequences of a major economic shock, focusing on the differential impact by gender. Our identification relies on the country’s first giant discovery in 1969, which affected particularly the population residing in Rogaland, the emerging oil region. Existing studies of sectoral shocks and sudden resource windfalls largely focus on male labour, but it is less understood whether women can also benefit and, if so, by how much relative to men. Using a panel of individuals from the Norwegian Registry Data, we find evidence that the discovery substantially increases male earnings, while female earnings decline slightly, leading to an increase in the pre-existing gender wage gap. This gap persists over time until the 1990s and also in terms of lifetime income. Teenage men residing in the oil county at the time of the shock benefit the most in terms of lifetime income, while only women who were very young at the time of the oil shock do not lose out. We explore the composition and dynamics of occupational choices using the 1970 and 1980 individual Census data to shed light on the mechanisms explaining these income effects.