DO GENDER EMPLOYMENT AND WAGE DISPARITIES AFFECT LABOUR PRODUCTIVITY IN NIGERIA?

Labour productivity is a vital economic indicator that is closely linked to competitiveness, economic growth and living standard within an economy. It provides the general information about efficiency and quality of human capital in the production process. This study examined the effects of gender employment and wage disparities on sectoral labour productivity in Nigeria for the period 1991 to 2019, using error correction model (ECM). The results showed that the effects of gender employment and wage disparities on labour productivity differed in the sectors, both in the short-run and long-run. The finding remained valid even when the disparities were moderated with education. Therefore, the study concluded that the effects of gender disparities on productivity in the sectors were heterogeneous. Consequently, the paper emphasised the need for the Federal Government of Nigeria to implement female education-friendly policies. Also, there is the need for employers in the Nigeria productive sectors to jettison gender prejudice in their employment decisions so as to engender increased and sustainable labour productivity.

Has the gender wage gap narrowed or widened in a decade? Some recent evidence from the Turkish labor market

The principal objective of this study is to determine the variation in the gender wage gap in the last decade of the Turkish labor market and reveal possible factors that drive the wage disparities. Therefore, the data set covers the Household Budget Statistics surveys 2009 and 2018. In order to prevent biased results, the empirical strategy contains the two-stage model estimation and selectivity corrected decomposition approach. The findings claim a widening gender wage gap in a decade. The portion of the gender wage gap resulting from the labor market discrimination tends to increase whereas the wage gap based on the gender differences in characteristics decreases. Despite the decrease, if the female employees had the same characteristics as males, their mean wages would be higher. Moreover, the gender wage gap attributable to gender discrimination in the labor market continues to increase.

Closing the Gap: How Mayors’ Individual Attributes Affect Gender Wage Disparities in Local Bureaucracies

Gender inequities in public organizations manifest in various forms, including gaps in leadership roles and compensation. Increasing women’s representation in elected offices may reduce gender inequities in the public sector. This study examines whether women’s representation in local elected offices reduces gender wage disparities among men and women serving in Brazilian municipal executive bureaucracies. The findings suggest that municipalities with women mayors and larger proportions of women on the city council have smaller gender wage gaps in the municipal executive bureaucracy than those with men mayors and few women councilors. Furthermore, statistical models that account for diversity among men and women mayors in terms of their age, education, and partisanship suggest that even men mayors that likely hold progressive attitudes do not reduce gender disparities to the same degree as most women mayors. These findings underscore the importance of women’s representation for reducing gender inequities in the public sector.

The persistence of apartheid regional wage disparities in South Africa

In this article, we use a new economic geography (NEG) model to estimate the extent to which the persistence in apartheid regional wage disparities in South Africa is an outcome of economic forces such as market access. We estimate a structural wage equation derived directly from the NEG theory for 354 regions over the period 1996 to 2011. We find support for an augmented NEG model in explaining regional wage disparities across regions in South Africa, although the market access effects are highly localised in view of high distance coefficients. We also find, even after controlling for NEG and other region-specific characteristics, a persistent wage deficit in the former homelands, where under apartheid black South Africans were forcefully relocated according to their ethnic groups. Average wages of workers in homelands remained approximately 17% lower than predicted between 1996 and 2011, despite the reintegration of these regions into South Africa and the implementation of regional policies after the end of apartheid.

Financialization and Wage Inequality in Urban China

The growth of wage inequality during a period of rapid economic development and reform in China raises questions about the nature of economic stratification in contemporary Chinese society. The most prominent explanation is that the transition to a market economy contributed to the growth of wage inequality by increasing the returns to human capital and skill in China. However, recent research suggests that the labor market in China is highly segmented across economic sectors because of preferential state investment and reform of strategic sectors. We contend that the growth and prominence of the financial sector in China empowered financial labor to obtain greater compensation, which created a wage premium in the sector. Drawing on nationally representative data on Chinese urban households, we test this argument by estimating adjusted wage differentials between financial and non-financial sectors across the distribution of earnings since the late 1980s. Estimates show that a wage premium emerged in the mid-1990s for low, median, and high earners in the financial sector. Over the next two decades, wage disparities within the financial sector increased as the wage premium shrank for low earners in the sector while expanding for high earners in the sector. We find that this dynamic is explained by growing occupational stratification in the financial sector, where the wage premium greatly expanded for the highest-paid managers and executives. Overall, this study extends the literature on contemporary economic inequality in China by identifying how excessive compensation among top earners in the financial sector contributed to wage inequality.

Wage disparities between high and low wage cities with and without the cost of living within Punjab and Sindh: An application of Oaxaca-Blinder using PSLM with HIES

Wage disparities research hardly incorporate for the cost of living differences due to data restriction, while the wage disparity issue is the crucial area of economist interest. The study aims to examine the wage disparities between high and low wage cities for Punjab and Sindh province of Pakistan with and without the cost of living, deploying the data of Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement Survey (PSLM) with Household Integrated Economic Survey (HIES) for 2005, 2007, 2010, and 2013. Applying the Oaxaca-Blinder estimation method, the findings infer that wage dispersion is high without the cost of living model for both provinces (Punjab and Sindh) as compared to with cost of the living model. Moreover, the results reveal that the wage dispersion is greater in Punjab province than Sindh province. For policymakers, our study suggests that the cost of living is an essential component of the wage dispersion in Pakistan’s cities; it should be considered while formulating for wage policy.

Salaries in Forensic Anthropology and Academic Anthropology

This project examined the salaries of forensic anthropologists in the United States. Additionally, the salaries of forensic anthropologists employed in academia were compared to those of other academic anthropologists. The goal of this project was to develop baseline data in terms of salaries for forensic anthropologists while also examining various factors that may affect forensic anthropology salaries. Salary information is important because salary transparency narrows wage disparities, reduces favoritism and discrimination, increases the bargaining power of employees, and potentially causes employers to focus more on salary differentiation in terms of productivity and seniority; essentially, wage transparency generates greater equity among employees (Estlund 2014). In order to examine salaries in forensic anthropology, internet search engines were used to find open-access salary data for individuals currently listed as non-student members of the anthropology section of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences and/or the American Board of Forensic Anthropology. All variables were analyzed using random forest models. Results found that in all models, there were no differences in salary between men and women. Further, no significant differences were found between anthropology subfields in academia. Importantly, years since terminal degree was the most important variable affecting salary in all models, with academic rank being the most important variable for individuals employed in the academic sector. Further, these results demonstrate inconsistencies in pay for forensic anthropologists, especially for those working in the applied sector.

Do Parental Leaves Make the Motherhood Wage Penalty Worse?

We assess if and how motherhood wage penalties change in response to the design of parental leave regulations. Focusing on Germany, we compare sweeps of reforms inspired by opposite principles. One allowed for longer periods out of paid work in the 1990s, the other prompted quicker re-entry in the labour market in the late 2000s. These reforms may have first exacerbated and later mitigated wage losses for new mothers, albeit each component of leave schemes may trigger separate, and at times zero-sum, mechanisms. We rely on Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) data and a difference-in-differences design. Focusing on first-time mothers, we find that motherhood wage penalties were substantial (around 20–30 per cent of pre-birth wages) and also changed little during the 1990s. As parental leave reform triggered longer time spent on leave coupled with better tenure accumulation, wage losses for mothers remained stable in this first period. Following parental leave reform in the late 2000s, instead, the wage prospects of first-time mothers improved, thanks in part to shorter work interruptions and increased work hours. We suggest that the nuts and bolts of leave schemes can be fine-tuned to reduce child penalties and, thus, gender wage disparities.