What Works? How Combining Equal Opportunity and Work–Life Measures Relates to the Within-Firm Gender Wage Gap

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate how organizational equal opportunity and work–life measures when combined are associated with the gender wage gap within large German establishments. By looking at both kinds of measures as parts of a comprehensive personnel strategy, we provide a novel way to distinguish between a career-supportive implementation of work–life measures versus implementation as a compensating differential. Using a linked employer–employee dataset, we performed a cross-sectional multilevel regression analysis with fixed effects for 6439 respondents within 122 establishments. The results indicate that work–life measures that support employees in their parenthood responsibilities are linked to a significantly higher GWG, particularly for parents. Our results indicate that the implementation of work–life measures is used as compensating differentials, primarily for mothers. Particularly, this can be found when looking at the combination of multiple measures. In combination with equal opportunity measures for women, work–life measures that highlight the long-term absence from the workplace are associated with a higher GWG for parents.