Glass ceiling or sticky floor? Examining the gender earnings differential across the earnings distribution in urban China, 1987–2004

Cameroon’s informal labour market largely harbours female workers, engaged mainly in low-productivity and low-paying jobs. We investigate the sticky floor and glass ceiling phenomena in the informal labour market as a whole and across its segments. We use the 2010 Cameroon labour market survey, employing the recentred influence function and blending the Oaxaca-Ransom and Neuman-Oaxaca decomposition methods. The resulting framework enables us to account for selectivity bias at the mean, resolve the index number problem of the standard decomposition, and examine earnings differentials across the unconditional earnings distribution. We find compelling evidence of a sticky floor phenomenon in the informal labour market manifested essentially among wage earners. Returns to experience mitigate the gender earnings gap at the mean, and 10th and 50th percentiles of the unconditional earnings distribution. Female workers have an unambiguous human-capital-based advantage over their male counterparts at the mean, lower tail, and median of the distribution.

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Exploring the Glass Ceiling and Sticky Floor in Malaysia

Asian Social Science ◽

10.5539/ass.v12n6p203 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 12 (6) ◽

pp. 203

Author(s):

Wan Liyana Mariah Wan Zainal Abidin ◽

Zaleha Mohd Noor ◽

Wan Azman Saini Wan Ngah

Keyword(s):

Quantile Regression ◽

Glass Ceiling ◽

Household Income ◽

Earnings Differentials ◽

Earnings Distribution ◽

Gender Earnings Gap ◽

Earnings Gap ◽

Quantile Regression Analysis ◽

Sticky Floor ◽

The Impact

Usage of quantile regression is preferred nowadays to examine the gender earnings differentials across the earnings distribution. Based on Household Income Survey of 2009 and 2012, this paper examines the issue in Malaysia. The objective of this study is to evaluate the extent of gender earnings differentials across the earnings distribution in 2009 and 2012, whether the glass ceiling or sticky floor exists in the labour market in Malaysia. Based on the pooled quantile regression analysis, the established results indicate that the earnings gap is increasingly larger towards the bottom of the earnings distribution, a finding that is consistent with the existence of sticky floor in both years. Besides, the gender earnings gap is also accelerating between 75th to 90th percentiles, reflecting that the glass ceiling also prevails at the top of the earnings distribution in both years. Furthermore, it is noted that the impact of sticky floor is greater than glass ceiling. Nonetheless, further findings denote that the extent of sticky floor had been reduced whilst glass ceiling had increased within the period.

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