scholarly journals Occupational segregation and wage differences: the case of Poland

2018 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 378-397 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pawel Strawinski ◽  
Aleksandra Majchrowska ◽  
Paulina Broniatowska

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyse the relation between occupational segregation and the gender wage differences using data on three-digit occupational level of classification. The authors examine whether a statistically significant relation between the share of men in employment and the size of the unexplained part of the gender wage gap exists. Design/methodology/approach Traditional Oaxaca (1973) – Blinder (1973) decomposition is performed to examine the differences in the gender wage gaps among minor occupational groups. Two types of reweighted decomposition – based on the parametric estimate of the propensity score and non-parametric proposition presented by Barsky et al. (2002) – are used as the robustness check. The analysis is based on individual data available from Poland. Findings The results indicate no strong relation between occupational segregation and the size of unexplained differences in wages. The unexplained wage differences are the smallest in strongly female-dominated and mixed occupations; the highest are observed in male-dominated occupations. However, they are probably to a large extent the result of other, difficult to include in the econometric model, factors rather than the effects of wage discrimination: differences in the psychophysical conditions of men and women, cultural background, tradition or habits. The failure to take them into account may result in over-interpreting the unexplained parts as gender discrimination. Research limitations/implications The highest accuracy of the estimated gender wage gap is obtained for the occupational groups with a similar proportion of men and women in employment. In other male- or female-dominated groups, the size of the estimated gender wage gaps depends on the estimation method used. Practical implications The results suggest that decreasing the degree of segregation of men and women in different occupations could reduce the wage differences between them, as the wage discrimination in gender balanced occupations is the smallest. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is one of the few conducted at such a disaggregated level of occupations, and one of few studies focused on Central and Eastern European countries and the first one for Poland.

2017 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 504-516 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carmen Garcia-Prieto ◽  
Patricia Gómez-Costilla

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to get deeper insight into the measurement of gender wage gap. A proper method to identify which part of gender wage differences is due to discrimination against women is provided, and the relationship between wage differences and education is studied. Design/methodology/approach The stochastic frontier approach is employed to measure wage discrimination against women by using Spanish data from the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions. Mentioned technique allows the authors to split the gender wage gap of workers displaying the same characteristics into two components: the first measures inefficiency in the job search process caused by imperfect information or gender differences concerning preferences regarding working conditions, where as the second takes account of discrimination. Findings A significant level of discrimination is found in the Spanish labour market at all educational levels, but this problem is quantitatively more important when low-educated workers are studied, and gender discrimination is lower for highly educated women. Originality/value In this paper, workers’ potential wage is estimated, and gender discrimination is measured by the gender potential wage gap, since it is not dependent on other wage determinants such as diverse preferences, unmeasured working abilities or imperfect information.


2014 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 368-391 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Couppié ◽  
Arnaud Dupray ◽  
Stéphanie Moullet

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to test whether the gender wage gap at the beginning of the working life in France varies with the gender composition of occupations (male-dominated, female-dominated or mixed) and its main determinant (educational pre-sorting or labour market sorting). Design/methodology/approach – The first stage of the methodology is to decompose segregation indexes at occupation level into the two components of determination noted above. The occupations are then divided into five groups on the basis of their gender composition and the weight of the educational segregation. Oaxaca-Blinder decompositions are then applied to each group. Findings – Among 54 strongly gendered occupations, the segregation in 26 stems mainly from educational pre-sorting. This context is favourable to reduction of the gender wage gap. However, a modest wage differential is not proof of convergence towards equity, as it may conceal the existence of a significant discrimination component, as in male occupations. Research limitations/implications – The results relate to a cohort of French youth. The earnings-equalizing impact of education-based occupational segregation should be tested in other national contexts. Social implications – Public authorities should put in place incentives to encourage women's participation in a greater range of education and training courses and to improve the matching between education and the skill content of jobs. Originality/value – The originality lies in the suggestion that a strong connection between education and skill requirements helps to narrow the occupational gender wage gap.


Author(s):  
Rossella Icardi

Context: Existing studies have explored the association between workplace training and wages suggesting that training participation may have a positive association with wages. However, we still know very little about whether this association varies between men and women. Through its potential positive association with wages, training may balance wage differences between men and women. In addition, the gender wage gap varies across the wage distribution. Differences in the association between training participation and wages for men and women across the earnings spectrum may offer an explanation as to why the discrepancy in female/male earnings is larger at some point of the wage distribution compared to others. Approach: Using data from the Programme for International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) and unconditional quantile regression, this paper examines whether the association between workplace training and wages differs between men and women at different points of the wage distribution across 14 European countries. To partly control for endogeneity in training participation, detailed measures of cognitive skills have been included in the models. Findings: Findings show gender differences in the association between training and wages across the wage distribution. In most countries, results indicate larger training coefficients for women than men at the lower end of the wage spectrum whereas they are larger for men at the top. This pattern holds across most countries with the only exception of Liberal ones, where women benefit less than men across the entire wage spectrum.Conclusions: The findings of this work reveal that distributional variations in returns to workplace training follow a similar pattern across industrialized countries, despite their different institutional settings. Moreover, differences in training coefficients of men and women at different parts of the wage distribution suggest that training could reduce gender wage differences among low earners and potentially widen the gap in wages among individuals at the top of the wage distribution. 


Author(s):  
Zuzana Machová ◽  
Lenka Filipová

This paper was written as a part of a research project studying problem of wage determinant measuring and wage discrimination considering different wage requirements of men and women. The wage determinants and gender wage discrimination are analyzed using a probit model. The whole analysis is methodologically based on Mincer’s Wage Regression and Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition of gender wage gap. The wage variables include, aside from standard personal characteristics, dummies for institutional and firm characteristics and dummies for family status and family roles. The data were gained by a questionnaire survey carried out in Ostrava city. The results of the analysis, representative for the city, show statistically significant differences between wage determinants of men and women. The survey concluded in 2 statements: (1) family role is an important wage determinant and its inclusion to Mincer’s Wage Regression leads to better explanation of wages; and (2) including family characteristics in Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition can significantly reduce unexplained part of gender wage gap, i.e., a part of a wage difference usually ascribed to gender wage discrimination can be explained by different preferences of men and women on a labor market.


2015 ◽  
Vol 36 (5) ◽  
pp. 711-732 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lin Xiu ◽  
Morley Gunderson

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyze the gender earnings gap in China with a focus on the role of differences in the occupational distribution of males and females. Design/methodology/approach – The authors use a procedure to model occupational attainments and decompose differences in earnings into an inter-occupational portion due to differences in the occupational distribution between males and females, and an intra-occupational portion due to differences in pay. The analysis is based on Chinese census data. Findings – The authors find that the male-female pay gap is virtually completely explained by wage discrimination defined as females being paid less than males within the occupation groups based on six broad occupations. Occupational segregation explains virtually none of the overall male-female pay gap, and in fact the “segregation” slightly favors women. However, the picture changes substantially when the analysis is conducted at the more disaggregate sub-occupation level within each of the six broad groups. Wage discrimination remains the prominent contributor to the pay gap across the disaggregated sub-occupations in each of the broad occupations. But there is considerable heterogeneity in the effect of occupational discrimination within the sub-occupations within the different broad occupational groups. Social implications – When females have the same occupation-determining characteristics as men, they are in lower paying sub-occupations within the professional group and to a lesser extent within manufacturing and operations jobs. There is considerable heterogeneity in the effect of occupational discrimination within the sub-occupations in the different broad occupational groups. Originality/value – The paper systematically examines the degree to which the gender earnings gap in China is due to the differences in occupational distributions of males and females, highlighting that the conventional Blinder-Oaxaca decompositions can under- or over- estimate the unexplained portion of the gender pay gap by controlling or not controlling for differences in the occupational distribution of males and females. The paper also shows that previous studies that have examined occupational segregation across aggregate occupational groups can mask important differences in the effect of occupational discrimination within the sub-occupations in the different broad occupational groups.


2014 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 267-290
Author(s):  
Rita Asplund ◽  
Reija Lilja

Purpose – Both academia and policymakers express a strong belief in higher average education levels exerting a narrowing impact on wage inequality in general and gender wage gaps in particular. The purpose of this paper is to scrutinize whether or not this effect extends to R&D- and export-intensive branches such as the technology industry. Design/methodology/approach – In exploring the impact of individual and job-related background factors and, especially, of job-task evaluation schemes on the size and change in gender wage gaps in the technology industry, the paper applies an elaborated decomposition method based on unconditional quantile regression techniques. Findings – While changes in standard human capital endowments can explain little, if anything, of the growth in real wages or the widening of wage dispersion among the Finnish technology industry's white-collar workers, a new job-task evaluation scheme introduced in 2002 seems to have succeeded, at least in part, to make the wage-setting process more transparent by re-allocating especially the technology industry's female white-collar workers in a way that better reflects their skills, efforts and responsibilities. Practical implications – One crucial implication of this finding is that improving the standard human capital of women closer to that of men will not suffice to narrow the gender wage gap in the advanced parts of the economy and, hence, not also the overall gender wage gap. The reason is obvious: concomitant with rising average education levels, other skill aspects have received increasing attention in working life. Consequently, a conscious combination of formal and informal competencies as laid down in well-designed job-task evaluation schemes may, in many instances, offer a more powerful path for tackling the gender wage gap. Originality/value – While the existing evidence on the impact of performance-related pay on gender wage gaps is still scarce but growing the authors know of no empirical studies analyzing the gender pay-gap effect of job-task evaluation systems.


Empirica ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
René Böheim ◽  
Marian Fink ◽  
Christine Zulehner

Abstract We examine the gender wage gap in Austria from 2005 to 2017 using data from EU-SILC. The raw gap of hourly wages declined from 18.6 log points in 2005 to 14.9 log points in 2017. We use standard decomposition techniques that correct for differences in the distributions of human capital and other variables between men and women. Decompositions of the wage gap indicate that both the explained and the unexplained part of the gender wage gap decreased substantially over the last ten years. Using the approach developed by Neumark (J Hum Resour 22:279–295, 1988), the unexplained wage gap shrank from 8.7 log points in 2005 to 5.1 log points in 2017. The main reason for the decline in wage differences was the relative improvement of women’s observed and unobserved characteristics.


2021 ◽  
Vol 62 ◽  
pp. 5-31
Author(s):  
Sergey Roshchin ◽  
◽  
Natalya Yemelina ◽  

This study introduces a comparative analysis of the gender wage gap decomposition methods with the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (RLMS) data for 2018. To decompose the differences in average wages, approaches based on the Oaxaca–Blinder decomposition are used. Apart from the mean wages, the study focuses on other distribution statistics. Using the quantile regressions, the wage gap between men and women is decomposed for the distribution parameters such as median, lower and upper deciles. The decomposition estimates of conditional and unconditional (based on recentered influence functions) quantile regressions are compared.


2018 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 111-148 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tanja Van der Lippe ◽  
Leonie Van Breeschoten ◽  
Margriet Van Hek

Many organizations in Europe offer work–life policies to enable men and women to combine work with family life. The authors argue that the availability of organizational work–life policies can also reduce gender inequality in wages. The authors test their expectations using the European Sustainable Workforce Survey, with data from 259 organizations and their employees in 9 European countries. Multilevel analyses show that organizations that offer work–life policies have a smaller gender wage gap. Their findings also suggest that both the type and number of policies matter. Contrary to their expectations, dependent care policies, such as parental leave and childcare support, are less important for the gender wage gap than flexibility policies. Controlling for organizational culture regarding family supportiveness does not alter the results.


2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Caron

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to quantify the labor market outcomes of people with disabilities (PwD) in Indonesia and compares them to people without disabilities. It first studies the labor force participation of PwD before examining the large and persistent wage gaps they face. It explores whether these wage gaps are explained by differences in productivity, a distinction which has important implications for policies addressing these gaps.Design/methodology/approachThe analysis is based on the Indonesian Family Life Survey Wave 5, which includes unique questions allowing for several definitions of disability. Multinomial logistic regression is used to study differences in type of employment for PwD. Wage gaps are estimated and corrected for selection using propensity score matching, supported by a Heckman selection model and Oaxaca–Blinder decomposition. Comparisons with other physically disadvantaged subgroups and the analysis of heterogeneity by job requirements and sector of work explore whether productivity gaps help explain wage gaps.FindingsPwD generally have lower unconditional labor force participation, but disparities largely disappear when controlling for characteristics. Moreover, patterns vary depending on whether the measure of disability used depends on prior medical diagnosis. PwD that do not require prior diagnosis tend to work in more vulnerable employment. When they are employed for wages, people with these types of disabilities face lower wages, up to 22% lower. Meanwhile, (surprisingly) those with medically diagnosed conditions face no difference or a wage premium. This paper finds compelling evidence that, where a wage penalty exists, a substantial part is unexplained by observable characteristics.Originality/valuePrevious literature on disability has been mostly based on studies of high-income economies. This paper extends the literature to Indonesia, which differs from high-income contexts due to lack of mental healthcare resources and assistive technologies, as well as weaker rule of law. It provides unique insights based on types of disability and the salient dimensions of disability in the workplace. It also provides evidence that productivity differences do not explain the wage gap.


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