Gender Pay Gap in the Slovak Labour Market

Abstract

Inequality in remuneration and specifically the gender pay gap have been the subject of research by economists for many years. This contribution focuses on the investigation of the gender pay gap in the Slovak labour market. Structure of Earnings Survey microdata for the years 2006, 2010, 2014, and 2018 are used in the analysis. This paper aims to quantify the unadjusted and adjusted gender pay gap and verify the assumption that the observable characteristics are responsible for the gender pay gap rather than discrimination. The results show that the gender pay gap in the labour market persists in an unadjusted form at the level of 15%. The gender pay gap is positively correlated with education, in which investment yields greater returns for men than for women. In terms of age, women aged 40-49 are the most disadvantaged. In addition, the long-term presence of vertical segregation has been demonstrated, which prevents women from reaching better-paid positions even in female-dominated sectors. The adjusted form of the gender pay gap showed that women have better human capital characteristics than men, which are, however, correlated with their choice of job and field of education, which in turn leads to the support of sectoral and professional segregation.