Un-Nudging Pay Gaps: The Role of Pay Raise Budget Framing

This study examines the determinants of labor force participation for men and women in Guinea for three sectors and for earnings. Employment includes self-employment private wage employment and public wage employment. Data were obtained from a survey of 1725 households in the capital city of Conakry in 1990. Labor force participation (LFP) was 40% for women aged 15-65 years and almost 100% for men aged 30-50 years. Men were engaged almost equally in all three sectors while women were mostly engaged in self-employment. Self-employed women tended to come from low-income households. All public sector employees were well-educated (about 10-12 years). Average levels of education among the self-employed were very low (2-3 years). In the private wage sector men averaged 5 years and women averaged 9 years of schooling. 47% of men and 59% of women in the public sector were in professional or managerial jobs. In the private sector over 50% of women were in professional managerial or clerical jobs compared to only 16% of men. Few women in the private sector were engaged in skilled trades or unskilled work. Most self-employed women and only 50% of men tended to work in retail trade. Migration during the past 5 years was positively associated with mens entry in self-employment and the private sector and negatively associated with their public sector employment. Determinants of womens self-employment included residence near commercial areas of the center city electricity in the house and work activity during the rainy season of April-September. Fulani and Malinke women were less likely to be self-employed. For women the benefits of education and experience declined after a certain level. Returns to schooling were high for both genders. Men earned more than women. There is a need to increase educational and employment opportunities for women.

The gender wage gap and the gender work gap are sizable, persistent and well documented for many countries. The result of the gender wage and gender work gap combined is an income gap between men and women. A small literature has begun to examine how the tax-benefit system contributes to closing gender income gaps by redistributing between men and women. In this paper, we study the effect of tax-benefit policy on gender differences in income in the EU27 countries and the UK. We use microsimulation models linked to survey data to estimate gender gaps in market income (before taxes and transfers) and disposable income (after taxes and transfers) for each country. We then decompose the difference between the gender gap in market income and the gender gap in disposable income into the relative contribution of taxes and benefits in each country. We also isolate the relative contributions of the gender wage gap and the gender work gap to the overall gap in income between men and women in two of these countries.

The gender wage gap and the gender work gap are sizable, persistent and well documented for many countries. The result of the gender wage and gender work gap combined is an income gap between men and women. A small literature has begun to examine how the tax-benefit system contributes to closing gender income gaps by redistributing between men and women. In this paper, we study the effect of tax-benefit policy on gender differences in income. We use microsimulation models linked to survey data to estimate gender gaps in market income (before taxes and transfers) and disposable income (after taxes and transfers) for each country. We develop a method to isolate the relative contributions of the gender wage gap and the gender work gap to the overall gap in income between men and women. We then decompose the difference between the gender gap in market income and the gender gap in disposable income into (i) the relative contribution of taxes and benefits in each country and (ii) the relative cushioning of the gender wage gap and gender work gap. Policy conclusions are drawn about redistribution between men and women.

South Korea’s gender wage and employment gaps are among the largest in the OECD. Using labour force survey data over 2010–19, we estimate gender wage and employment gaps, and child earnings penalties, for women aged 25–54. We show (i) that the large gender gaps in South Korea’s labour market are mostly not a function of differential sorting by gender along education, occupation, or industry lines, (ii) that caring for children (and, perhaps increasingly, for the elderly) is the major factor inhibiting women’s labour force participation, and (iii) that large gender wage gaps exist even for women without care responsibilities. These findings suggest that improving opportunities for work–family balance is crucial to helping increase women’s labour force participation, but may do little to close gender wage gaps: other major obstacles also appear to stand in the way of Korean women’s full inclusion in the labour force.

Do menstrual problems explain gender gaps in absenteeism and earnings?: Evidence from the National Health Interview Survey

Gender equality is a pressing issue on the agenda of many countries. Climate change is a global problem that cannot be solved without joint efforts. In Moldova, the problem of climate change is particularly acute, as the country is agrarian. Over the past six years, every second year, due to climate cataclysms, the volume of agricultural production has fallen. First of all, crop production volumes declined by an average of 30% in 2020, 2022, and 2024. On the other hand, Moldova strives to mitigate gender inequality, which manifests itself in various spheres of life (economy, health care, participation in decision-making bodies). This study tests the hypothesis about the impact of climate change on gender vulnerability. The authors suggest that in Moldova, climate change is exacerbating existing gender vulnerability, widening gender gaps in income, employment, poverty, and political participation. The research methodology is based on correlation analysis of publicly available data from the National Bureau of Statistics. The novelty of this study lies in the development of the Gender Vulnerability Index (GVI), consisting of six sub-indices that reflect the gender gap in income, employment, absolute poverty level, life expectancy at birth, representation in Parliament, and ministerial positions. The results of the study showed that there is a statistically significant relationship between climate change and the level of gender vulnerability. Gender gaps in employment and income exert the most significant impact on the GVI. These two indicators reflect women's limited opportunities in the labor market and wages compared to men, and their value has been higher in the last five years than in the previous period. The developed equations of multiple linear regression not only confirmed the proposed hypothesis but also proved that to mitigate gender vulnerability, it is necessary to promote strategies and programs aimed at reducing female unemployment and increasing the level of women's education.

It has long been recognized that consumption behavior represents mainly joint household or family decisions rather than separate decisions of family members. Accordingly, the observational units in consumption surveys are "consumer units," that is, households in which income is largely pooled and consumption largely shared. More recent is the recognition that an individual's use of time, and particularly the allocation of time between market and nonmarket activities, is also best understood within the context of the family as a matter of interdependence with needs, activities, and characteristics of other family members. More generally, the family is viewed as an economic unit which shares consumption and allocates production at home and in the market as well as the investments in physical and human capital of its members. In this view, the behavior of the family unit implies a division of labor within it. Broadly speaking, this division of labor or "differentiation of roles" emerges because the attempts to promote family life are necessarily constrained by complementarity and substitution relations in the household production process and by comparative

What is the impact of the gender pay gap in academia over the course of a career and retirement? To quantify this impact, we used a Canadian post-secondary institution as a case study and simulated the effects of the reported difference in salary across multiple academic career trajectories. A starting wage gap of less than $9,000 resulted in a $300,000–$400,000 gender wage gap over the course of a career, and a further $148,000–$259,000 gender pension gap, for a total gender pension and wage gap of $454,000–$660,000, depending on the rank achieved. Thus, focusing on gender gaps in salary alone leads to a substantial underestimation of the long-term effects of the gender gap.

Despite large literatures on gender and family wage gaps (e.g., the motherhood wage penalty, fatherhood wage premium, and the marriage premium) and widespread recognition that the two gaps are intertwined, the extent and pattern of their relationships are underexplored. Using data from the 2018 Survey of Income and Program Participation, we show that family wage gaps are strongly associated with the gender wage gap, as long assumed in the literature, but with important caveats. The gender-differentiated wage returns to parenthood contribute 29 percent of the gender wage gap. One third of this is associated with occupation, but very little with other worker and job attributes. The gender-differentiated returns to marriage contribute another 33 percent, two thirds of which is associated with worker and job attributes but very little with occupation. However, 36 percent of the gender wage gap is unrelated to these family wage gaps, and the gender wage gap among childless workers remains substantial. Moreover, for Black and Hispanic workers, the pattern of association is more complex and generally weaker than for White workers. These results caution against focusing solely on the wage gap between “mothers and others” and suggest new directions for research.

Research findings from the negotiation literature have revealed significant differences in the negotiation behaviors of men and women, specifically that women do not negotiate as often or as successfully as men do. This difference has been cited as one of many factors contributing to the persistence of the gender wage gap. A possible explanation for the differences is that men and women are treated differently when they negotiate. Thus, there is evidence that women negotiators tend to receive multiple forms of social and economic punishment (i.e., backlash) for engaging in behavior that is inconsistent with stereotype-based expectations of women in the context of salary negotiations, including lower offers, decreased likeability and shareability, and declined requests for pay increases. These findings may partially explain the persistence of the gender and racial wage gaps today while also being indicative of unfair treatment that women receive in the workplace. While previous research has separately explored issues of gender and race in negotiation, few studies have examined the joint influence of these factors on negotiation outcomes. For this study, intersectionality and expectancy violation theory (EVT) served as the basis for the hypothesis that the backlash for initiating salary negotiations is greater for women of color than for white women. The results, however, did not support the hypothesis that gender and race interact in such a way that women of color experience disproportionate backlash. Nevertheless, the research presented here provides a paradigm for the future study of negotiation from the perspective of the joint effects of gender and race in the context of efforts to bridge the gender wage gap, improve negotiation outcomes for women and persons of color, and promote workplace equity.

Gender and ethnic earnings gaps in seven West African cities

PurposeThe aim of the research is to estimate the level of the early career gender wage gap in Russia, its evolution during the early stages of a career, gender segregation and discrimination among university graduates, and to identify factors which explain early career gender differences in pay. Special emphasis is placed on assessing the contribution of horizontal segregation (inequal gender distribution in fields of studies and industries of employment) to early-career gender inequality.Design/methodology/approachThe study is based on a comprehensive and nationally representative survey of university graduates, carried out by Russian Federal State Statistics Service in 2016 (VTR Rosstat). The authors use Mincer OLS regressions for the analysis of the determinants of gender differences in pay. To explain the factors which form the gender gap, the authors use the Oaxaca-Blinder and Neumark gender gap decompositions, including detailed wage gap decompositions and decompositions by fields of study. For the analysis of differences in gender gap across wage distribution, quantile regressions and quantile decompositions based on recentered influence functions (RIFs) are used.FindingsThe study found significant gender differences in the early-career salaries of university graduates. Regression analysis confirms the presence of a 20% early-career gender wage gap. This gender wage gap is to a great extent can be explained by horizontal segregation: women are concentrated in fields of study and industries which are relatively low paid. More than half of the gender gap remains unexplained. The analysis of the evolution of the gender wage gap shows that it appears right after graduation and increases over time. A quantile decomposition reveals that, in low paid jobs, females experience less gender inequality than in better paid jobs.Social implicationsThe analysis has some important policy implications. Previously, gender equality policies were mainly related to the elimination of gender discrimination at work, including positive discrimination programs in a selection of candidates to job openings and programs of promotion; programs which ease women labour force participation through flexible jobs; programs of human capital accumulation, which implied gender equality in access to higher education and encouraged women to get higher education, which was especially relevant for many developing countries. The analysis of Russia, a country with gender equality in access to higher education, shows that the early career gender gap exists right after graduation, and the main explanatory factor is gender segregation by field of study and industry, in other words, the gender wage gap to a high extent is related to self-selection of women in low-paid fields of study. To address this, new policies related to gender inequality in choice of fields of studies are needed.Originality/valueIt has been frequently stated that gender inequality appears either due to inequality in access to higher education or after maternity leave. Using large nationally representative dataset on university graduates, we show that gender equality in education does not necessarily lead to gender equality in the labour market. Unlike many studies, we show that the gender gap in Russia appears not after maternity leave and due to marital decisions of women, but in the earliest stages of their career, right after graduation, due to horizontal segregation (selection of women in relatively low-paid fields of study and consequently industries).

The “gender pay gap” refers to the average difference in men’s and women’s earnings, and is typically adjusted for hours worked. The gender pay gap can refer to differences in mean or median annual earnings, weekly earnings, or hourly wage. Because women tend to work part-time at higher rates than do men, and because part-time work tends to pay lower hourly wages relative to full-time work, the size of the gender pay gap is affected by whether full- and part-time, full-year or seasonal, and very young and very old workers are included in the estimates. Among full-time, year-round American workers aged sixteen and above in 2017, the gender pay gap (median weekly earnings) was 18.2 percent, meaning that women earned 81.8 cents of every man’s dollar. In the United States, women of color earn less relative to white men than white women do, owing to racial gaps in pay among women; moreover, within-race gender pay gaps are often smaller among racial/ethnic minorities, reflecting the low earnings of minority men. The gender gap has narrowed considerably since the early 20th century, yet disparities in women’s and men’s earnings persist. Moreover, this narrowing has not proceeded in a linear fashion and the gap has occasionally increased. This entry first introduces important literatures on historic and contemporary trends in the gender pay gap and then discusses the various explanations for the persistence of, and changes in, the gap. These explanations highlight the role of occupational gender segregation; the devaluation of female-typed work; gender differences in experience; family structure, care responsibilities, and the gendered impact of parenthood; workplace structures of inequality; glass ceilings and glass escalators. This entry concludes with a discussion of narrowing the gap and what it will take to close the gap.

In this article, we examine the relationship between market transition and gender gap in earnings in urban China. We analyze change in the gender gap in human capital, political capital, labor-force placement, and family structure; change in the amount of monetary return to these determinants; and the changing significance of these sources of influence. We do so by analyzing two national samples from the 1988 and 1995 Chinese Household Income Project (CHIP) and city-level data for 1995. We found no longitudinal change nor city-level variation in the gender gap in earnings. Despite this stability, the proportion of the gender gap in earnings attributable to education and occupational segregation increased over time. This change is disproportional, occurring largely only in the most marketized cities. In these highly marketized cities, the significance of market-related mechanisms — education and occupation and industry-placement — has increased, while the contribution of redistribution-related mechanisms — affiliation with the state sector, party membership, and seniority — has decreased. These changes indicate that the Chinese market transition is a nonlinear, cumulative process.

Women's earnings inequality persists, despite policy efforts to reduce discrimination and gender bias. Gender gaps in earnings, however, are a function of hours worked as well as wage rates, and reflect gendered short and long work hour patterns. Within households, how partners exchange time is a crucial driver of hours worked yet this is rarely incorporated into analysis of gender earning gaps. Using a two-stage instrumental variable Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition we model earnings gaps as a function of own and partner hours on and off the job. This enables us to estimate what the gender gap in hours and earnings would look like without a gendered time ‘subsidy’ or ‘borrowing’ in the home. We studied dual-earner households in two countries, Australia and Germany, finding a weekly earnings gap of AUD$536 and €400. This was accompanied by a weekly work hour gap of 12 hours in Australia and 13 in Germany. When we accounted for the influence of partner’s hours (paid or unpaid), work hour gaps reduce to 5.1 hours in Australian households (58% reduction), and to 6.9 hours in German (47% reduction). In effect, women would work 3 to 4 hours more each week, and men’s long hours would reduce, narrowing the gender earnings gaps by 43% in Australia and 25% in Germany, if time ‘subsidies’ in the home were eliminated. Our analysis reveals the economic cost to women long work hour cultures impose. JEL codes: J16, J21, J22, J31