Sticky Floor Effect Research Articles

The Need to Practice What We Teach: Revisiting the Sticky Floor Effect in Five Southern U.S. States’ Public Universities

Administrative appointments throughout higher education are sought after, highly coveted positions that exhibit power and authority for many as they become leaders. Historically, males have held a majority of these positions. Johnson, Long, and Faught (2014) found “a clear discrepancy exists” (p. 29). This study revisits the research of Johnson, Long, and Faught in examining the gender composition of public university administrators, following the chain of command from the colleges of business upwards, in five southern U.S. states. As in the original research, this study investigates the presence and prevalence of the sticky floor effect and the perceived fair employment practices of universities in applying diversity concepts within their institutions 11 years after the initial study.

Assessing earnings inequalities by gender and race in the cultural sector in Brazil

This study aimed to investigate gender and racial disparities in earnings in Brazil’s cultural sector. Using microdata from 2019 and 2020, earnings equations were estimated, and the Firpo, Fortin, and Lemieux decomposition method was applied by quantile, considering two definitions of the cultural sector: broad and narrow, the latter excluding manufacturing and commercial activities. The findings highlight the presence of gender and racial inequalities, with racial disparities being more significant. In the broad cultural sector, both white and black women have higher average education levels than men but tend to work in lower-paying occupations. The explained effect, largely driven by the lower education levels of black workers, plays a crucial role in determining the earnings gap from a racial perspective. When focusing on culture-related activities, women possess more favourable characteristics for higher pay compared to men, except for the unexplained effect. Without this effect, women would earn more than men across all quantiles. White women in the narrower cultural sector appear to have broken the glass ceiling, but a sticky floor effect is observed for them. However, black women have yet to overcome the glass ceiling barriers in the cultural sector.

Does Working from Home Increase the Gender Wage Gap? Insights from an Italian Survey of Occupations

ABSTRACT This article investigates to what extent the working from home (WFH) feasibility of occupations can influence the gender wag gap (GWG) at the mean and along the wage distribution. Based on Oaxaca–Blinder decompositions and unconditional quantile regressions, results show that the GWG is greater among women working in an occupation with a high level of WFH feasibility. We find evidence of both sticky floor and glass ceiling effects for employees with high WFH feasibility and only a sticky floor effect for the group with low WFH feasibility. The positive association revealed between the level of WFH feasibility and the GWG appears particularly strong among older and married women employees. These results underscore that the WFH feasibility may play an important role in exacerbating future gender gaps in wages, as WFH is expected to remain a normal practice beyond the COVID-19 pandemic. HIGHLIGHTS Working from home (WFH) feasibility of occupations influences the gender wage gap (GWG) in Italy. GWG is overall wider among employees with high WFH feasibility than employees with low WFH feasibility. The GWG is higher among older and married women employees. A possible explanation is Italy’s ungenerous work–family policies and poor childcare availability. There is a need for policies aimed at regulating WFH from a gender-equality perspective.

Assessing the glass ceiling and sticky floor effects in the Argentinian tourism sector

This paper examines the gender wage gap in the Argentinian tourism sector. We use microdata from the Permanent Household Survey 2018-2019 and implement the Machado and Mata quantile decomposition method with an innovative sample selection correction. We find that the gender wage gap in tourism sector and its subsectors is not constant throughout the wage distribution. In the whole tourism sector, the gap is greater at the bottom of the wage distribution and is explained by discrimination against women. In hospitality, the gap increases over the distribution suggesting a glass ceiling effect explained by discrimination. In restaurants, however, the gap is greater at the bottom of the distribution, which provides evidence of a sticky floor effect due to differences in individuals’ endowments. Finally, the gap in travel agencies, cultural, sports and entertainment services remain relatively constant across the wage distribution.

Gender Wage Gap: Evidence from Employment in Informal Sector

The gender wage gap is still a common phenomenon in many developing countries, especially in the informal sector. As opposed to the formal sector, the gender wage gap seems more adverse in the informal sector, where women are often in unfavourable situations to lessen the substantial wage gap between them and men. This study examined the gender earnings gap from the lower level to the upper level of the wage distribution in informal sector employment using the Indonesian National Labor Survey in 2019. While the Oaxaca-Blinder method only looked at the wage gap from the differences in mean values, this research used the Recentered Influence Function (RIF) to reveal the gaps in the wage distribution. The research found the presence of a weak sticky floor effect across the wage distribution. The gender earnings gap decreased as we moved from the lower wage distribution to the upper wage distribution. Furthermore, the structure effect or unexplained factors contributed to the most prominent share of the gap that forms the wage difference for the entirety of the wage distribution, ranging from 70 per cent. Having examined the individual characteristics, education was found to be the most prominent factor that can help narrow the gap.

Do “inferior” jobs always suffer from a wage penalty? Evidence from temporary workers in Cambodia and Pakistan

PurposeThis paper aims to investigate the wage gap between temporary and permanent workers in Pakistan and Cambodia.Design/methodology/approachQuantile regression estimator is likely to be the most relevant to the sample.FindingsThe estimates indicate the presence of a temporary employment wage penalty in Pakistan and contrarily a wage premium in Cambodia. Moreover, quantile regression estimates show that wage differentials could greatly vary across the wage distribution. The wage gap is wider at the bottom of the wage distribution in Pakistan, suggesting a sticky floor effect that the penalty of being in temporary jobs could be more severe for disadvantaged workers. By contrast, a glass ceilings effect is found in Cambodia, indicating that the wage premium is small at the bottom and becomes high at the top of the pay ladder.Originality/valueDespite the rise of temporary jobs in the past several decades, the empirical evidence on wage differentials between temporary and permanent workers is extremely limited in developing Asian countries. This paper is the first research work that systematically examines the temporary-permanent wage gap in selected Asian countries, based on their National Labor Force Survey data.

Analysing the glass ceiling and sticky floor effects in Bangladesh: evidence, extent and elements

With deep-seated gender imbalances prevalent in Bangladesh, it is compelling to understand how those women, who do manage to get employed, are faring in terms of equity. A popular approach involves analysing the gender wage gap across the entire distribution. With the assistance of the latest data from QLFS 2016–2017, the gender wage gap is decomposed, with selection issues addressed by Buchinsky (J Appl Econom 13(1):1–30, 1998) method. The paper has then proceeded to posit the existence of a strong sticky floor effect and a weaker glass ceiling effect in Bangladesh, with discriminatory rewards to observed characteristics being the dominant feature of the observed wage gap across the entire distribution. Women face discrimination at the bottom end chiefly due to differences in returns. On the other hand, women at the top are subject to extensive discrimination despite being superior to men in terms of endowment. Consequently, low-earning women require access to jobs which reward their skills as much as their male counterparts; the same holds true for the high-income group. There is also evidence of selection bias for both genders. Policy prescriptions based on these findings and potential avenues for further scope concerning the paper are also mentioned in the end.

A distributional analysis of the gender wage gap among technical degree and diploma holders in urban India

Using Indian employment data obtained from the National Sample Survey, 2011−12, we investigate whether, in urban India, there is a wage gap between men and women workers with similar technical education (degrees or diplomas) at various points on the wage distributions. Our descriptive analysis shows that women in urban India are lagging behind men in obtaining technical education. Attainment of technical education raises the probability of labour force participation of both men and women compared to those who don’t have such education. The magnitude of this effect is strongly pronounced among women than men. However, the unemployment rate among technically educated women is higher than their male counterparts. With regard to our central objective, the findings from the Re-centered Influence Function decomposition show that women get lower wages than men. Our sub-sample-wise and state-wise analyses concur with this finding. Furthermore, we find that women workers with technical diplomas face a sticky floor effect, while women with technical degrees face both sticky floor and glass ceiling effects. Lower attachment to the labour market, marriage and presence of children in the family are the key factors explaining women’s lower labour market rewards than men. This observation is true across the wage distributions of diploma and degree holders in urban India. We emphasize on continued attention with respect to anti-discrimination labour market policies, public provision of day-care services, and compulsory crèche facilities at workplaces to minimize the gender wage gap. Additionally, the formulation of gender sensitization committees and setting up of behavioural standards at workplaces are called for tobreak the glass ceiling among the technical degree holders.

Discrimination against refugees in the Palestinian labor market

PurposeThis paper examines the level and structure of the wage inequality between nonrefugee and refugee workers in Palestine and the extent to which such wage gap reflects any marginalization and discrimination against refugees. It also investigates how the disparities in distribution to individual worker characteristics contribute to the wage inequality in Palestine.Design/methodology/approachThe authors use both Oaxaca and Blinder (OB) (Oaxaca, 1973 and Blinder, 1973) and Fortin et al. (2011) unconditional quantile decomposition approaches to measure the size of the wage gap along with the wage distribution and to decompose the wage differences into productivity (i.e. explained or the composition effects) and wage structure effects (i.e. unexplained or discrimination effects).FindingsResults indicate that most of the wage gap between refugees and nonrefugees is attributed to the wage structure effect (possibly explained by discrimination) against refugees in the Palestinian labor market. The wage gap between refugees and nonrefugees is not uniform throughout the wage distribution and supports the “sticky floor effect.”Practical implicationsThis work introduces important policy implications for the policymakers in the Palestinian labor market. It reveals the economic and social factors, individual worker characteristics as well as labor market characteristics contribute to the wage inequality in Palestine.Social implicationsThis research reveals a crucial social challenge in the Palestinian society, represented by the wage discrimination against refugees in Palestine. This is despite the denial of such discrimination from official bodies, local institutions and many other policymakers. It also captures gender inequality between men and women.Originality/valueThis is the first empirical work in Palestine that contends with a very sensitive issue in the Palestinian society, that is, the discrimination against refugees in the Palestinian labor market. Most of the existing studies have approached this issue from a humanitarian view in order to show the deterioration of social and economic situations in the refugee camps.

More insecure and less paid? The effect of perceived job insecurity on wage distribution

ABSTRACTThis article employs a Counterfactual Decomposition Analysis (CDA) using both a semi-parametric and a non-parametric method to examine the pay gap due to perceived job insecurity over the entire wage distribution of dependent workforce in Italy. Using the 2015 INAPP Survey on Quality of Work, our results exhibit a mirror J-shaped pattern in the pay gap between secure and insecure workers, with a significant sticky floor effect, i.e. a greater effect of job insecurity at the lowest quantiles. This pattern is mainly due to the characteristics effect, while the relative incidence of the coefficient component accounts roughly for 22% up to 36% of the total difference, being more relevant at the bottom of the wage distribution.

Cultural Variations in the Glass Ceiling Effect: A Review

Gender Disparity is a universal phenomenon. The effect is more evident in an organisational setup. Two common forms of gender disparity are sticky floor effect and glass ceiling effect. Glass ceiling effect refers to the barriers that prevent women from progressing to the higher positions in the organisations. It can lead to differences in pay and may prevent women from climbing up the career ladder. The barriers may be psychological, social or organisational. The paper discusses the presence of glass ceiling across different cultures and its implications.

Investigating the gender wage gap in Vietnam by quantile regression: Sticky floor or glass ceiling

Inequality between men and women in the labor market is one of the issues that is of great interest in labor economics. The sticky floor effect occurs when the gender wage gap widens at the lower tail of the wage distribution. The glass ceiling effect in wage exists if the gender wage gap at the top of the wage distribution is wider than other positions. This study uses the dataset of VHLSS2014 and adopts quantile regression to investigate the existence of glass ceiling and sticky floor in the Vietnam’s labor market. The overall results obtained of the entire sample show that there is sticky floor effect but no glass ceiling in the Vietnam’s labor market. However, the results are different when it comes to each labor group. In terms of urban and rural areas, the sticky floor exists, but the glass ceiling does not in both areas. In terms of state and private sectors, while the glass ceiling exists in state sector, the stick floor is only present in the private sector.

Analysis of Glass Ceiling and Sticky Floor Effects for Gender Wage Gap in Malaysian Labour Market

Kertas ini mengkaji secara empirik faktor penentu keberuntungan dan produktiviti firma insurans am di Malaysia. Model struktur berasaskan teori Structure Conduct and Performance (SCP) telah digunakan untuk menganggar dua fungsi utama iaitu fungsi keberuntungan dan fungsi produktiviti. Kajian menggunakan data panel bagi tempoh 40 tahun yang melibatkan 50 buah syarikat insurans untuk penganggaran model penentu keberuntungan dan produktiviti firma insurans dengan menggunakan kaedah Kuasa Dua Terkecil Dua Peringkat (2SLS). Empat hipotesis telah diuji iaitu hipotesis SCP, hipotesis Relative Market Power (RMP), hipotesis Efficient-Structure (ES) dan hipotesis Market-Power (MP). Dapatan kajian menunjukkan fungsi keuntungan firma insurans am mempunyai hubungan yang positif dan signifikan dengan pendapatan premium, pulangan atas pelaburan dan pusing ganti aset tetap. Syer pasaran, pusing ganti jumlah aset dan harga insurans pula mempunyai hubungan yang negatif dengan fungsi keuntungan firma insurans am. Dalam fungsi produktiviti firma, terdapat hubungan positif yang signifikan antara pulangan atas aset, produktiviti pengurusan, syer pasaran, komisen agen dan pusing ganti aset tetap dengan fungsi produktiviti firma insurans am. Sementara itu, pemboleh ubah pusing ganti jumlah aset, pulangan atas pelaburan, produktiviti buruh dan harga insurans pula mempunyai hubungan negatif dengan fungsi produktiviti firma insurans am.

THE EVOLUTION OF GENDER WAGE DIFFERENTIALS IN THAILAND: 1991–2007 — AN APPLICATION OF UNCONDITIONAL QUANTILE REGRESSION

Using unconditional quantile regression and an approach which allows the identification of the individual contributors to the gender wage gap and its over-time change, we study the gender wage differentials over the whole distribution in Thailand from 1991 to 2007. We also propose an extension of the single quantile decomposition to explore the origins of the distributional changes in gender wage differentials over time. A persistent sticky floor effect and declining gender wage gaps over time are observed. Aggregate decompositions using a reweighting approach show that most of the gap and changes in gaps are due to (changing) coefficients effect. Detailed decompositions show that within the (changing) characteristics effect, education contributes to the narrowing of the gap over the whole distribution, and within the coefficients effect age and the constant term are the most influential factors but with opposite effects.

Wage Discrimination in India's Formal and Informal Labour Markets

The paper looks at the extent of gender and caste-based discrimination in the formal and informal labour markets in India using the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) Employment-Unemployment Survey (EUS) data for the four major rounds from 1999-00 to 2011-12. The study finds gender wage gaps to be significantly higher in the informal economy - a major part of which is attributable to discrimination effect. In sharp contrast, it is mainly the endowment effect which is responsible for the gender wage gaps in the formal economy. Caste-based wage gaps are found to be significantly lower in the informal economy and are attributable mainly to the endowment effect. Although caste-based wage gaps are positive in the formal economy, caste-based wage discrimination works the other way round in the formal economy with SC/ST workers getting a higher return to their endowments compared to the OBC/General workers. The quantile decomposition results for gender shows the presence of a sticky floor effect in both the formal and the informal economy whereas in case of caste-based discrimination, we find evidence of a glass ceiling effect in the informal economy and a U-shaped pattern in the formal economy.

DIFFERENCES IN DECLINE: QUANTILE REGRESSION OF MALE–FEMALE EARNINGS DIFFERENTIAL IN MALAYSIA

Semiparametric estimation has gained significant attention in the study of wage inequality between men and women in recent years. By extending the wage gap at the mean towards the entire wage distribution using quantile regression, it enables researchers to ascertain the direction and the proportions of differences in characteristics and returns to these characteristics at different parts of the wage distribution. This line of research has been prominent in western society but has not yet been explored in the context of the Malaysian labor market. To fill the gap, this paper examines the gender earnings gap in Malaysia between 1994 and 2004 using Malaysia Population and Family Survey data. The gender earnings differential, as measured by the log percentage point is 53% in 1994. The difference reduces to 45% for a restricted sample and 42% for the unrestricted sample in 2004. However, it was found that the gender wage gap reduces as we move up the wage distribution. This suggests that women suffer from a sticky floor effect, i.e., the gender wage gap is bigger at the bottom of distribution. More importantly, the observed gender wage differentials do not reflect differences in the productive characteristics of the workers. In fact, it accounts for very little, if any, of the gap in Malaysia. However, the extent of the price effect is larger at the bottom end of the distribution than at the top.

Gender and ethnic inequalities in LAC countries

This article examines the structure of gender and ethnic wage gaps and the distribution of both paid and unpaid work in LAC countries. Its main contribution is to expose the double discrimination endured by women in the region. Indeed, the results indicate that women are highly discriminated in the job market and undertake most of the domestic activities in the household, allocating in average 40 hours per week to paid market activities and another 40 hours to in-home unpaid activities. The indigenous population also suffers from discrimination, but the wage gap is mainly explained by the difference in endowments, highlighting their limited access to education and their concentration in rural areas. The wage quantile decomposition results suggest the presence of sticky floor effects for both women and indigenous workers. J22; J31; J71

Earning differentials by occupational categories: Gender, race and regions

Abstract Analyzing the income differentials amongst the Brazilian workers’ occupations is the focus of this paper. Due to the wide diversity of occupations cataloged by the IBGE (around 800), a theoretical procedure is applied to reduce them to only seven in order to allow statistical treatment of the data. The methodological approach is based on Mincerian quantile equations to be estimated in various strata of the workers’ income distribution, on which a breakdown is made to check the gap among the individuals’ income with distinct inherent attributes and between those living in both more and less developed regions. The estimation results ensure the importance of breakdown analysis for occupational strata as well as for quantiles, since the effects of explanatory variables are distinct along the income distribution and vary among occupations. Regarding the gaps in this distribution, there is a glass ceiling effect in some occupations, that is, the gap is greater at the top of distribution, although in most cases the wider gap occurs at the bottom of the distribution – sticky floor effect, which makes this a distinguished result from other studies. Moreover, contrary to the gap in gender, which is due to the compensation characteristics of individuals only (discrimination), income differentials between regions and races also occur from the heterogeneous characteristics of workers.

Are There Glass-Ceiling and Sticky-Floor Effects in India? An Empirical Examination

In this paper, the gender-related wage differentials in the rural and urban sectors of the Indian economy are analysed. The hypotheses that there is a glass-ceiling effect—a greater wage gap at the top end of the wage-distribution range—and a sticky-floor effect—a wider wage gap at the bottom are examined. Findings show evidence of the glass-ceiling effect in the rural sector and evidence of the sticky-floor effect in the urban sector. Using a counterfactual decomposition method, the raw wage gap is decomposed to identify the contributions of characteristics and coefficients. The results reveal the presence of labour–market discrimination against women. Furthermore, women at the lower end of the wage-distribution spectrum face more discrimination than those at the higher end of the range.

Gender Wage Discrimination in India: Glass Ceiling or Sticky Floor?

Traditional analysis of gender wage gaps has largely focused on average gaps between men and women, and mean wage decompositions such as the Blinder-Oaxaca (1973) decomposition method. To answer the question of whether there is a “glass ceiling” or a “sticky floor,” i.e. whether wage gaps are higher at the upper or lower ends of the wage distribution, this paper examines the wage gaps across different quantiles of the wage distribution. These gender wage gaps are analysed for regular wage workers in India using the 66th round of the National Sample Survey’s Employment-Unemployment Schedule (2009-2010). The paper finds evidence of a “sticky floor.” In addition to estimating the standard OLS wage equations for men and women, quantile regressions are used to assess how different covariates such as education, union membership, and occupations, affect within and between group (gender) inequalities. Finally, the Machado-Mata-Melly (2006) decomposition method is used to decompose gender wage gaps at different quantiles to determine whether it is the differences in characteristics (levels of covariates) or the unexplained (discrimination) component that drives the sticky floor effect. The paper concludes with a discussion on the possible reasons for observing a sticky floor phenomenon in India.