Gender Wage Differentials Research Articles

Education and gender wage differentials in Portugal: what can we learn from an age cohort analysis?

Important changes characterize the recent evolution of the schooling of workers in Portugal. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the consequences of those changes in the gender wage gap. In particular, we analyze and compare the way that this process has evolved in the groups of young workers and older workers. Our findings suggest that the major part of the pay gap refers to employer discrimination practices for both age group cohorts: in the case of the younger workers, discrimination plays an increasing role in explaining the wage gap; whereas for the older workers, discrimination remains stable over time.

The gap between male and female pay in the Spanish tourism industry

This paper analyzes wage differentials between male and female workers in the Spanish tourism industry, using a large, administratively matched employer–employee data set obtained from a representative sample of companies. This allows us to control for unobserved firm-specific factors likely to affect the magnitude of the gender wage gap. Our findings indicate that male workers earn on average 6.7% higher monthly wages than their socially comparable female counterparts. In particular, the type of contract held, the qualifications required for the job and the specific sub-sector of employment are very important variables in explaining this gender wage difference. We also find that only around 12% of the mean wage difference in the tourism industry cannot be explained by differences in observable characteristics, which is well below the average for the rest of the industries in Spain (87%). Our interpretation is that minimum wage legislation provides a particularly effective protection to women in the tourism industry, which is characterized by a large number of low-wage earners.

The Causes about the Change of Gender Wage Differentials in Urban China: Empirical Analysis Using 1995 and 2002 Chinese Household Income Project Surveys

The Causes about the Change of Gender Wage Differentials in Urban China: Empirical Analysis Using 1995 and 2002 Chinese Household Income Project Surveys

Gender wage differences and human capital in the early twentieth century: the case of the paper box industry in New York

Women employed in the New York paper box industry in 1913–1914 earned about 60% of what men did. This paper employs the human capital framework to analyze the wage differential due to productivity related factors versus discriminatory nepotism towards men. Years of schooling, years of experience in the paper box trade, and legislative restrictions on working hours of women account for virtually all of the observed wage differential, both for all men and women in the paper box industry, and between the skilled occupations of cutters and strippers.

Gender wage differentials, job search, and part-time employment in the UK

Gender wage differentials in the UK are examined using a general equilibrium search model. This framework permits an assessment of male-female differences in labour market behaviour on gender wage differentials. The model captures worker decisions leading to transitions between labour market states and jobs, and firm responses to such transitions via wage offers. Special attention is paid to part-time workers, who have substantially less labour market attachment than full-time workers. The results indicate labour market behaviour differences play a role in determining gender wage differentials within education levels. The importance of these differences varies by education level and hours of work. These findings have implications for policies aimed at reducing gender wage differentials, and for researchers assessing the causes of gender wage differentials in situations where a large fraction of women work part-time. Copyright 2009 , Oxford University Press.

The Early‐career Gender Wage Gap among University Graduates in the Finnish Private Sector

AbstractIn the Finnish private sector, the gender wage gap increases significantly during the first 10 years after labour market entry, accounting for most of the lifetime increase in the gender wage differentials. This paper investigates the reasons for this gender difference in early‐career wage development. By focusing on university graduates the paper considers several explanations based on the human capital theory, job mobility, and labour market segregation. The results suggest that only about 20–26 per cent of the average early‐career gender wage gap is explained by gender differences in experience, the field of education, employer characteristics, and mobility. A substantial unexplained gap thus remains. Of the investigated factors gender differences in the field of education and work experience matter most.

Market Orientation and Gender Wage Gaps: an International Study

SUMMARYMore market orientation may reduce gender wage gaps via its effects on competition in product and labor markets and a generally lower level of regulation in the economy. On the other hand, less regulation and state intervention – which goes along with higher market orientation – may diminish the role of legislature and institutions that influence wage setting and may therefore increase gender wage differentials. In this paper, two very different approaches are used to test the relation between market orientation and gender wage differentials in international data. The first approach employs meta‐analysis data and takes advantage of the fact that many studies already exist which use national data sources to the best possible extent. The second approach uses comparable micro data from the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP), which allows calculating internationally consistent gender wage residuals in the first place. By comparing these two very different methods of data collection we get the robust result that higher levels of market orientation as proxied by the Economic Freedom Index lead to lower gender wage gaps across countries and time periods.

South Korean women at work: gender wage differentials by age, 1988–1998

Earning differences between South Korean women and men were compared to better understand how gender differences in wages have changed between 1988 and 1998 for five age groups. Utilizing labor market data from Korea's Occupational Wage Survey (OWS) for the years 1988 and 1998, we found that men enjoy a wage advantage over women in all age groups in both time periods. For all but the oldest group (55 and over), such bias was less in 1998 than in 1988. As hypothesized, the wage gap was narrower among younger age groups compared with older ones.

Race and Gender Differences in Wages: The Role of Occupational Sorting at the Point of Hire

Previous work suggests that occupational sorting and differences in starting salary play a large role in race and gender wage gaps. This study uses unique data from the human resources department of a financial company to examine the role of occupational sorting in race and gender differences in initial salary offers. While this company exhibits large race and gender differences in salary offers, controlling for occupational differences accounts for all of the race effects and reduces the gender effect to substantive insignificance. These findings underscore the importance of occupational sorting mechanisms in creating race and gender differences in wages.

Evidence on gender wage differentials in Greece

The paper studies the earnings differential between genders in Greece employing quantile regression analysis and applying a variant of the selection-adjusted Oaxaca and Ransom (1994) decomposition methods to explain the components of the wage differentials. The results suggest that, in Greece, substantial differences in wages between men and women can be identified. Decomposing the wage gap between genders the results show that the difference in wages is attributed mainly to the unexplained part and to a lesser extent to the employee’s endowment. In all deciles of the wage distribution the wage differentials between genders are not explained by differences in the productive characteristics of the employed but rather they constitute the unexplained part of the wage differential.

The Cost of Being a Girl: Gender Earning Differentials in the Early Labor Markets

The gender wage gap is among the most persistent and durable characteristics of labor markets and women’s lives. Despite differences in focus, almost all studies of the gender wage gap focus on the adult labor market; however, almost every teenager in the United States works before adulthood. Therefore, an overwhelming majority of the population experiences the labor market, and possibly the gender wage gap, well beforehand. This article focuses on the early labor market experiences of youth and analyzes the gender differentials in earning in the youth labor market. The findings show there are no gender differences in wages for twelve- to thirteen-year-old youths. However, we see the emergence of the gender wage gap around fourteen, which widens with age. The wage differential in the early labor market is explained mostly by occupational factors such as types of jobs in which boys and girls are employed. In this way, the “cost of being a girl” still remains.

Gender Wage Differentials and the Occupational Injury Risk - Evidence from Germany and the US

Numerous studies, in particular for the US, have shown that individuals in occupations with high injury risk are compensated for that risk by corresponding bonus payments. At the same time, male workers are overrepresented in the most dangerous occupations like scaffolders or miners, while females typically work in relatively safe occupations with respect to occupational injuries. It is therefore remarkable that almost all studies analyzing the gender wage gap have disregarded different occupational injury risks as a potential explanatory variable for observed gender wage differentials. By merging data on occupational injury risks to German and US panel data on individual workers, this study analyzes gender wage differentials in Germany and the US considering fatal occupational injury risk. The Blinder-Oaxaca method for tobit models is used to decompose the gender wage gap with and without consideration of the fatal injury risk. Our results indicate that the compensating wage differentials for risky jobs are reflected in the resulting gender wage gap, which is caused by the unequal distribution of occupational injury risks among men and women.

How to Limit Discrimination? Analyzing the Effects of Innovative Workplace Practices on Intra-Firm Gender Wage Gaps Using Linked Employer-Employee Data

This paper provides a new approach to assess the impact of organisational changes fostering employee involvement, performance related pay schemes and other relevant trends in personnel policy on the gender wage gap. Our results indicate that innovative human resource practices tend to limit the wage differential between men and women. The innovation of this study is that we use linked employer-employee data to look at within-firm gender wage differentials. To investigate the theoretical hypotheses regarding the effect of selected human resource measures on gender wage inequality, we calculate a firm-specific gender wage gap accounting for differences in individual characteristics.

Is deindustrialization good for women? Evidence from the United States

The gender wage gap in the United States narrowed considerably throughout the 1980s and then more slowly in the 1990s. Using a decomposition methodology and US Current Population Survey data, this study investigates the impact of deindustrialization's continuing shift in employment away from manufacturing to services on the US gender wage gap between 1990 and 2001. The study finds that the widening of the gender wage gap in the service sector caused a slowdown in the narrowing of the US gender wage gap. Within the service sector, two occupational elements affected the growing gender wage gap: women's entry into traditionally male occupations characterized by high wages and high gender wage differentials that resulted in the relative increase in men's wages compared to women's wages in these occupations.

Gender Wage Differentials in Uganda: Evidence from the Uganda National Household Survey

This paper investigates the causes of gender wage differentials in Uganda. Given the potential differences in wage setting mechanisms between urban and rural labor markets, we break up the sample between rural and urban sub-samples. We use data from the nationally representative Uganda National Household Survey for 2002-03 (UNHS 2002/03). We employ standard decomposition techniques based on Oaxaca (1973) to decompose the gender wage gap into labor market characteristics and treatment components. The Neumark (1988) decomposition technique is used to address the index number problem. Further, self-selection into wage employment is controlled for using the Heckman (1979) two-step sample selection correction technique. Our empirical results suggest that a substantial portion of the gender wage differential results from employer-driven differences in treatment. This is more so in rural areas. Controlling for selection, the unexplained portion of the gender wage gap is between 61 percent and 78 percent in rural areas. In urban areas, the unexplained portion of the gender wage gap is between 41 percent and 68 percent. Further, in urban areas, 24 percent of the gender wage gap is due to nepotism toward males while 22 percent is a result of discrimination against females. In rural areas on the other hand, 68 percent of the gender wage gap is attributed to discrimination against females while only 1 percent is due to nepotism toward males.

The Role of Labor Market Intermittency in Explaining Gender Wage Differentials

Using the Health and Retirement Survey and standard wage decomposition techniques, this paper finds that the difference in intermittent labor force participation between men and women accounts for 47 percent of the contribution to the wage gap of differences in observed characteristics. Not controlling for intermittent behavior results in too much importance being placed on gender differences in job characteristics.

Changes in the Distribution of Male and Female Wages Accounting for Employment Composition Using�Bounds

This paper examines changes in the distribution of wages using bounds to allow for the impact of nonrandom selection into work. We show that worst case bounds can be informative. However, because employment rates in the United Kingdom are often low, they are not informative about changes in educational or gender wage differentials. Thus we explore ways to tighten these bounds using restrictions motivated from economic theory. With these assumptions, we find convincing evidence of an increase in inequality within education groups, changes in educational differentials, and increases in the relative wages of women.

The Role of Labor Market Intermittency in Explaining Gender Wage Differentials

Using the Health and Retirement Survey and standard wage decomposition techniques, this paper finds that the difference in intermittent labor force participation between men and women accounts for 47 percent of the contribution to the wage gap of differences in observed characteristics. Not controlling for intermittent behavior results in too much importance being placed on gender differences in job characteristics.

Decomposition of the Gender Wage Gap Using Matching: An Application for Switzerland

SummaryIn this paper, we investigate the gender wage differentials for Switzerland. Using micro data from the Swiss Labour Force Survey, we apply a matching method to decompose the wage gap in Switzerland. This nonparametric technique accounts for wage differences that can be due to differences in the supports. We can interpret these differences as a form of “discrimination” which is reflected in wages because women face “barriers” in accessing certain characteristics that men achieve. As a consequence, accounting for these differences in gender supports may be useful in terms of policy implications in promoting more equality between men and women.

A Comparative Study on Occupational Segregation and its Impact on Gender Wage Differentials

A Comparative Study on Occupational Segregation and its Impact on Gender Wage Differentials