Gender Wage and Productivity Gaps in the Manufacturing Industry. The Case of Ghana

Abstract

The paper uses a panel of Ghanaian manufacturing data to examine the existence or nonexistence of labour market gender discrimination by comparing gender wage and productivity gaps for the period 1992–2003. In addition, the study investigates factors that affect the share of female employment. Results suggest that gender wage and productivity gaps exist in the manufacturing sector of Ghana. We also find no evidence of within‐firm gender wage discrimination, suggesting that the gender wage gap can be attributed largely to between‐firm wage inequalities and sorting of female workers to low productivity and low wage firms in the sector. Besides, our findings support the argument that globalisation and firm‐age are important in encouraging female employment which serves to reduce gender discrimination. Contrary, skill‐ and capital‐intensive firms have a lower share of female employees.