The gender wage gap in Russia: Some empirical evidence

Abstract

This paper presents estimates for wage equations and the gender wage gap for Russia using data drawn from the first sweep of the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (RLMS) carried out between July and November of 1992. The results reported provide a set of estimates that reflect the legacy of the Soviet planning system. In addition, given they are at a point in time just subsequent to the introduction of the liberalisation reforms, they provide an important benchmark against which the effects of the transition process on certain aspects of the labour market can be evaluated. In contrast to its relative success in capitalist economies, basic Mincerian functions provide poor fits to the 1992 Russian data, and suggest relatively modest returns to education. This latter finding is in comport with the empirical evidence from other socialist economies. The gender wage gap for employed workers in Russia was computed at 30%, and most of this was found to be attributable to gender differences in the returns to characteristics rather than to differences in the levels of characteristics. Although horizontal occupational segregation very broadly defined was found to be high in Russia, this was not found to be an important determinant of the differences in gender wages.