Male-female Wage Differentials Research Articles

Wage Differentials in the United States: Does Religious Participation Matter?

Using data on non-Hispanics from the 2005 Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), this article examines the within-religion association between religious participation and wages for mainline Protestants, conservative Protestants, and Catholics, the three major religious groups in the United States. While previous studies have examined this relationship for women only and using ordinary least squares (OLS), this article further analyzes gender differences and differences along the wage distribution using a quantile regression (QR) approach. The results indicate that high participation in religious services is associated with lower wages among mainline Protestant women and men, and among Catholic men. Among Catholic women, those who are not participating in religious activities earn higher wages relative to those who participate on a weekly basis. Furthermore, this advantage is more pronounced at high wages, as the QR estimates show. These results suggest the importance of defining religious participation in a manner that allows the detection of nonlinear effects. In addition, the findings speak to the importance of religion in the lives of individuals and may benefit policies dealing with male-female wage differentials.

The gender wage gap and occupational segregation in the Mexican labour market

This study examines the role of occupational segregation in explaining the gender wage gap in Mexico. Using census data and based on the Brown et al . (1980) decomposition, it is observed that male-female wage differentials increased between 2000 and 2010. For both years, within occupation wage differentials generally increased the gender wage gap, whereas between occupation wage differentials provided the opposite effect. Since within occupation wage differentials are driven by the unexplained component, the results suggest that the gender wage gap is primarily a product of differences in the average returns to productivity related characteristics within occupations. Occupational segregation does not increase malefemale wage differentials since women do not appear to encounter barriers into high paying occupations. This result is robust to the use of different levels of occupational aggregation and when correcting the wage equations for selectivity-bias.

Gender pay gaps among highly educated professionals — Compensation components do matter

Making use of panel data from a survey of highly educated professionals, gender pay gaps are explored with regard to total compensation as well as to individual compensation components. The results indicate meaningful male–female wage differentials for this quite homogeneous group of people working in one specific industry: in particular for more experienced employees in higher positions of firm hierarchies with children. Gender pay gaps are much more pronounced for bonus payments than they are for fixed salaries.

The Impact of Gender Wage Gap on Sectoral Economic Growth – Cross-country Approach

We propose an empirical analysis of testing the relationship between gender wage gap and economic growth. The study takes into account 12 manufacturing sectors in 18 OECD countries for the period between 1970 and 2005.We use industrial statistics (EU KLEMS, 2008) on female and male wages that distinguish between wages paid to different groups of workers classified according to skill level: high, medium and low. We estimate augmented production function where the malefemale wage differentials constitute a potential channel influencing growth (positively or negatively). Our research is motivated by the ambiguous results of previous empirical studies (e.g.: Seguiono 2000; Busse, Spielmann 2006; Seguino 2011; Schober, Winter-Ebmer 2011). Our main findings indicate that gender wage gap for high, medium and low-skilled workers is negatively correlated with sectoral growth. This results are confirmed in a number of robustness checks.

Decomposition of Male-Female Wage Differentials : A Comparative Analysis of Four Countries

Decomposition of Male-Female Wage Differentials : A Comparative Analysis of Four Countries

Does it pay to work in the public sector in Turkey?

This article examines wage gap between the public and private sectors in Turkey. Relying on microdata from Turkey's Household Budget Survey (HBS) for the year 2009, we estimate separate earnings functions for public and private sectors by gender with appropriate correction for selectivity bias. The results suggest that while the observed pay advantage of public male employees can be explained entirely by differences in their observed characteristics, for female employees these differences only partly explain the observed public–private pay differential. Decomposition of male–female wage differentials by sector of work suggests that women are facing discrimination in both sectors.

Do Male-Female Wage Differentials Reflect Differences in the Return to Skill? Cross-City Evidence from 1980–2000

Male-female wage gaps declined significantly over the 1980s and 1990s, while returns to education increased. In this paper, we use cross-city data to explore whether, like the return to education, the change in the gender wage gap may reflect changes in skill prices induced by the diffusion of information technology. We show that male-female and education-wage differentials moved in opposite directions in response to the adoption of PCs. Our most credible estimates imply that changes in skill prices driven by PC adoption can explain most of the decline in the US male-female wage gap since 1980. (JEL J15, J24, J31, J71, O33, R23)

Nonparametric Estimation of Labor Supply and Demand Factors

This article derives sharp bounds on labor supply and demand shift variables within a nonparametric simultaneous equations model using only observations of the intersection of upward sloping supply curves and downward sloping demand curves. Furthermore, I demonstrate that these bounds tighten with the imposition of plausible assumptions on the distribution of the disturbance terms. Using Katz and Murphy’s (1992) panel data on wages and labor inputs, I estimate these bounds and assess the supply and demand factors that determine changes within male–female wage differentials and the college wage premium.

Wage Earners, Self-Employed and Gender in the Informal Sector in Turkey

This study considers covered and uncovered wage earners and the self-employed. The analysis is carried out for men and women workers separately. The 1994 Turkish Household Expenditure Survey is used to examine how individuals are selected into the covered and uncovered wage earner and the self-employed categories. Next, selectivity corrected wage equations are estimated to examine wage determination in these sectors. Oaxaca-Blinder decompositions of the labor sector and male-female wage differentials are carried out. When controlled for the observed characteristics and sample selection, for men, covered wage earners earn more than uncovered wage earners and the self-employed. For the covered wage earners, men's expected wages are about twice the women's wages. For uncovered wage earners, men's wages are near parity with those of women. These results suggest segmentation for men along the formal and informal lines and substantial discrimination against women in the covered private sector.

On the Male-Female Wage Differentials in Brazil: Intra-occupational Differentials and Occupational Segregation

On the Male-Female Wage Differentials in Brazil: Intra-occupational Differentials and Occupational Segregation

Superior Female Education: Explaining the Gender Earnings Gap Trend in Thailand

The paper seeks to identify the main factors that contributed to the decline in gender earnings gap in Thailand's wage and salary sector from 1985-2005. Two parametric methodologies, Neumark's version [Neumark, D., 1988. Employers' Discriminatory Behavior and the Estimation of Wage Discrimination. The Journal of Human Resources 23(3), 279-295.] of the Blinder-Oaxaca method [Blinder, A. S., 1973. Wage Discrimination: Reduced Form and Structural Estimates. The Journal of Human Resources 8(4), 436-455.; Oaxaca, R. L., 1973. Male-Female Wage Differentials in Urban Labor Markets. International Economic Review 14(3), 693-709.] and the Juhn-Murphy-Pierce method [Juhn, C., Murphy, K. M., Pierce, B., 1991. Accounting for the Slowdown in Black-White Wage Convergence. In: Kosters, M. (Ed.), Workers and Their Wages. Washington, DC: AEI Press.], are implemented in order to decompose gender earnings gap at each point in time and across time periods. I also make a methodological contribution by proposing a way to modify the DiNardo-Fortin-Lemieux nonparametric decomposition method [DiNardo, J., Fortin, N. M., Lemieux , T., 1996. Labor Market Institutions and the Distribution of Wages, 1973-1992: A Semiparametric Approach. Econometrica 64(5), 1001-1044.] so that its results are comparable to those from Neumark's version of the Blinder-Oaxaca method. The key findings of this paper are as follows. First, I find that increases in female education and changes in unobserved factors, which were concurrent with modernization, were the main sources of the decline in gender earnings gap. Second, over time, improvements in the education of females in this sector surpassed that of males. However, the superior education of females did not result in females earning higher than males due to the existing counteracting effect of the unexplained factors. Finally, the nonparametric investigation corroborated the results from the parametric methodologies.

Male–female wage differentials in Japan

This paper empirically analyzes the gender wage gap in Japan using a new data set KHPS2004 which contains a wealth of information on the work history of individuals. KHPS2004 enables us to estimate wage functions without overstating individual’s human capital accumulation by work experience especially for females. Neuman-Oaxaca decomposition method is employed to analyze why the gender wage gap appears to exist in Japan. Main reasons as follows. First, full-time work experience and seniority which affect significantly wages is shorter for females than for males. Second, there are significant differences in evaluation of full-time experience between males and females.

Comparative Advantage or Discrimination? Studying Male-Female Wage Differentials Using Displaced Workers

In this paper we empirically examine differences in search behavior between men and women. We assess hypotheses regarding duration of search, wages and tenure. The hypotheses are derived from two models: the equilibrium search model with discriminatory firms by Black (1995) and an opportunity cost model that extends the Black model by incorporating age varying reservation wages. We identify effects using data on displaced workers and a differences in differences approach. We find that for men and women the duration of search is equal once we limit our estimation to women with a constant number of children in the household. Furthermore, we find no significant differences in the quality of job match between men and women. Finally, male/female wage differentials are largest among young workers but a significant portion of the difference is accounting for by changes in the number of children in the household. All these results suggest that differences in search behavior and outcomes between men and women are due to differences in nonmarket opportunities rather than to discrimination.

Incidence and duration of unemployment spells: Implications for the male–female wage differentials

We demonstrate in this paper that the incidence of unemployment and duration of unemployment spells affect the male–female gender wage differential. The results indicate that after controlling for sample selectivity bias in the wage equation, the incidence of unemployment and duration of unemployment spells account for about 14.2% and 39.6%, respectively, of the wage differential that exists between males and females. We observed that while the duration of unemployment accounts for a substantial portion of the wage differential in both the service (48.8%) and the manufacturing (17.0%) sectors, the impacts of the incidence of unemployment and duration of unemployment spells variables on the wage differential are rather small in the service (0.07%) and the manufacturing (1.6%) sectors. Also, high incidence of unemployments is associated with low wages for males and females in all samples. In contrast, longer durations of unemployment spells tend to increase males’ wages and decrease females’ wages in the full and service sector samples. At the macro level, the results seem to suggest that promotion of gender wage equality should be associated with policies that will minimize the female's incidence of unemployment and duration of unemployment spells.

Time Pattern of Male-Female Wage Differentials : Ontario 1946-71

In this paper the author examines whether male-female wage differentials have narrowed over time, whether such differentials narrow or widen at the peak of a business cycle, and whether the stricter enforcement of equal pay legislation in recent years has influenced these differentials.

The Impact of Worker and Establishment‐level Characteristics on Male–Female Wage Differentials: Evidence from Danish Matched Employee–Employer Data

Abstract. This paper uses matched employer–employee data from Denmark to examine how gender segregation at the level of occupation, industry, establishment, and job‐cell impacts the gender wage differential of full‐time, private‐sector salaried and manual workers. Wage effects of gender segregation at the above four levels are estimated through fixed effects or through controls for the proportion females within these structures. We find that occupation has a much larger role than industry or establishment in accounting for the gender gap for salaried but not manual workers, and that for both groups there is a significant within‐job‐cell gender wage differential.

The Impact of Gender Segregation on Male-Female Wage Differentials: Evidence from Matched Employer-Employee Data for Spain

This paper presents new evidence on the role of gender segregation within industry, occupation, establishment, and occupation-establishment cells in explaining gender wage differentials of full-time salaried workers in Spain during 1995 and 2002. Using data from the Spanish Wage Structure Surveys, we find that the raw gender wage gap decreased from 0.26 to 0.22 over the course of seven years. However, even after accounting for workers' human capital, job characteristics, and female segregation into lower-paying industries, occupations, establishments, and occupations within establishments, women still earned approximately 13 percent and 16 percent less than similar male counterparts as of 1995 and 2002, respectively. Most of the gender wage gap is attributable to workers' sex. Yet, female segregation into lower-paying occupations within establishments, establishments and industries accounted for a sizable and growing fraction of the female-male wage differential.

The effects of competition and equal treatment laws on gender wage differentials

Discrimination, if it is inefficient, can be eliminated by competition. In most countries, it is also forbidden by law. This paper evaluates the influence of economic and legal factors on the portion of male-female wage differentials that is not explained by other worker characteristics and may be due to discrimination. We use a new international data set of suitable gender wage gap measures, constructed from the results of existing studies. Meta-analysis of the data shows that increased competition and adoption of international conventions concerning equal treatment laws both reduce gender wage gaps, while legislation that prevents women from performing strenuous or dangerous jobs tends to increase it. — Doris Weichselbaumer and Rudolf Winter-Ebmer

The Impact of Worker and Establishment-Level Characteristics on Male-Female Wage Differentials: Evidence from Danish Matched Employee-Employer Data

This paper uses matched employer-employee data from Denmark to examine how gender segregation at the level of occupation, industry, establishment, and job-cell impacts the gender wage differential of full-time, private-sector salaried and manual workers. Wage effects of gender segregation at the above four levels are estimated through fixed effects or through controls for the proportion females within these structures. We find that occupation has a much larger role than industry or establishment in accounting for the gender gap for salaried but not manual workers, and that for both groups there is a significant within-job-cell gender wage differential.

Determination of participation decision, hiring decision, and wages in a double selection framework: male-female wage differentials in the U.S. labor market revisited

MADHU S. MOHANTY [*] The magnitude of the male-female wage differential is known to be highly sensitive to the specification of the wage equations used. An important source of misspecification is the failure to correct the sample selection bias that results from estimating the wage equation obtained through two sequential decisions: the worker's decision to participate in the labor market and the employer's decision to hire. Estimation of the wage equation ignoring this double selection process leads to biased estimates, and consequently the resulting male-female wage differentials are likely to be misleading. Following a double selection approach and using a sample from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, this article examines the determinants of not only the wage equation but also the worker's participation and the employer's hiring decisions in both male and female samples. The study further demonstrates that the unexplained male--female wage differential remains underestimated when the roles of both selection decision s are ignored in the estimation of wage equations. (JEL J71) I. INTRODUCTION Research on male-female wage differentials in the U.S. labor market suggests that males receive higher wages than otherwise identical female workers. Decomposing these differentials into explained and unexplained parts by using Oaxaca-Blinder residual difference technique (Oaxaca, 1973; Blinder, 1973), several authors during the last two decades have demonstrated that large percentages of the male-female wage differentials remain unexplained by observed worker characterstics (Blau et al., 1998). These unexplained differentials are often attributed to the presence of wage discrimination against females. It is important to note that the unexplained differential does not necessarily measure the magnitude of discrimination. How-ever, in the presence of a positive unexplained differential, the possibility of gender discrimination cannot completely be ruled out (Blau et al., 1998, 193). It is already known in the literature that the Oaxaca-Blinder residual difference approach is highly sensitive to the specification of the wage equation. In fact, the size of the unexplained differential may change drastically due to inclusion or exclusion of relevant explanatory variables, and consequently, a positive unexplained differential may even fail to indicate the presence of discrimination unless the problem of misspecification is completely resolved. An important source of misspecification of the wage equation is the sample selection bias (Heckman, 1979; Lee, 1978). Because wages are not available for all workers in the sample, the wage equation is usually estimated from a censored sample that includes employed workers only. The expected value of the error term of the wage equation in such a sample is not necessarily zero, and consequently ordinary least squares (OLS) estimates are biased. This bias is widely known in the literature as the selectivity bias. Heckman (1979) demonstrates that this bias arises due to omitted variable misspecification and can be corrected by including a selectivity variable as an explanatory variable in the wage regression. After the publication of a series of path-breaking papers by both Heckman and Lee on the correction of selectivity bias in the late 1970s, several researchers used their two-step approach to estimate male and female wage equations and wage differentials (Blau and Beller, 1988; Wright and Ermisch, 1991). Their findings suggest that the size of the unexplained differential changes significantly when the selectivity variable is included in the wage equation as a regressor. Under the original Heckman-Lee formulation, the wage sample is assumed to result from a single censoring process, and consequently the selectivity bias is corrected by including one selectivity variable generated by a first stage univariate probit. However, the problem of sample selection may still remain unresolved if, in fact, the wage sample is generated through multiple selection rules. …