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Alcidi, Cinzia & Alexandre Ounnas (2022): Can the Pay Transparency Directive close the gender pay gap? (CEPS policy insights 2022-06), Brussels, 10 S.

Abstract

"Today, our thoughts go out to all women who have had to flee Ukraine to escape horror and to save their children, and to all those women who have remained behind to help defend their homeland. To those men and women who have the chance to live in (still) peaceful EU countries, we want to recall that gender equality remains a top priority. In the EU, major progress has been made in advancing women’s rights over the past 25 years but challenges still remain, especially on the labour market. The gender pay gap is definitely not yet closed. Despite progress over the past few years, women in the EU are still paid less than men for equal work of equal value. In 2018, the gap was on average 14 %, and it is likely to have increased during the pandemic. In 2019, President von der Leyen put gender equality among the six priorities of her new Commission. In March 2021 the Commission published a proposal for a Directive to strengthen the application of the principle of equal pay for equal work or work of equal value between men and women through pay transparency and enforcement mechanisms. Is pay transparency important to close the gender pay gap? The short answer is yes. Over time women have been closing gaps relative to men in education, labour market participation, and attitude; areas which typically (used to) explain the gap. Yet pay differences persist. New research points to within-company dynamics as one of the most significant contributors to the pay gap. The directive proposes to address it through transparency and information sharing. This is expected to reduce the gender pay gap, even though the implementation, and in particular the operationalisation of the concept of equal work, will pose challenges to companies, and eventually can negatively weigh on the overall benefits." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

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Avram, Silvia & Daria Popova (2022): Do taxes and transfers reduce gender income inequality? Evidence from eight European welfare states. In: Social science research, Jg. 102. DOI:10.1016/j.ssresearch.2021.102644

Abstract

"We examine how taxes and transfers affect the incomes of men and women. Using microsimulation and intra-household income splitting rules, we measure the differences in the level and composition of individual disposable income by gender in eight European countries covering various welfare regime types. We quantify the extent to which taxes and transfers can counterbalance the gender gap in earnings, as well as which policy instruments contribute most to reducing the gender income gap. We find that with the exception of old-age public pensions, all taxes and transfers significantly reduce gender income inequality but cannot compensate for high gender earnings gaps. Our findings suggest that gender income equality is more likely to be achieved by promoting the universal/dual breadwinner model, whereby women's labour force participation and wages are on a par with men. To achieve this, men will likely need to work less and care more." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku, © 2022 Elsevier) ((en))

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Bachan, Ray & Alex Bryson (2022): One high-paid occupation where the gender wage gap has disappeared. Vice Chancellors of the UK’s universities. (VoxEU columns / Centre for Economic Policy Research), London, 6 S.

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Bachmann, Ronald & Myrielle Gonschor (2022): Technological Progress, Occupational Structure and Gender Gaps in the German Labour Market. (IZA discussion paper 15419), Bonn, 39 S.

Abstract

"We analyze if technological progress and the corresponding change in the occupational structure have improved the relative position of women in the labour market. We show that the share of women rises most strongly in non-routine cognitive and manual occupations, but declines in routine occupations. While the share of women also rises relatively strongly in high-paying occupations, womens' individual-level wages lag behind which implies within-occupation gender wage gaps. A decomposition exercise shows that composition effects with respect to both individual and job characteristics can explain the rise of female shares in the top tier of the labour market to an extent. However, the unexplained part of the decomposition is sizeable, indicating that developments such as technological progress are relevant." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

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Bamieh, Omar & Lennart Ziegler (2022): Can Wage Transparency Alleviate Gender Sorting in the Labor Market? (IZA discussion paper 15363), Bonn, 20 S.

Abstract

"Wage decompositions suggest that a large share of the gender wage gap can be explained by differences in occupation and employer choices. If female workers are not well informed about these pay differences, increasing wage transparency might alleviate the gender gap. We test this hypothesis by examining the impact of the 2011 Pay Transparency Law in Austria, which requires companies to state a wage figure in job advertisements. For the analysis, we combine vacancy postings from the largest Austrian job board with social security spells that record the gender of new hires. To compare the pay level of vacancies before and after the reform, we predict wage postings using detailed occupation-employer cells, which explain about 75 percent of the variation in posted wages. While we estimate a substantial gender wage gap of 15 log points, pay transparency did not affect gender sorting into better-paid occupation and firms. To study job transitions, we focus on a subsample of workers whose previous employment is also observed. Our estimates show that switching occupations is common, and it often entails significant wage changes. Yet, in line with our main estimates, we do not find that women become more likely to switch to better-paid jobs. We interpret the absence of effects as evidence that limited transparency does not explain the persistence of gender sorting in the labor market." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

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Bar-Haim, Eyal, Louis Chauvel, Janet Gornick & Anne Hartung (2022): The Persistence of the Gender Earnings Gap: Cohort Trends and the Role of Education in Twelve Countries. (SocArXiv papers), [Charlottesville, VA], 36 S. DOI:10.31235/osf.io/dkc76

Abstract

"Studying twelve countries over 30 years, we examine whether women’s educational expansion has translated into a narrowing of the gender gap in earnings when including persons with zero earnings. As educational attainment is cohort-dependent, an Age-Period-Cohort analysis is most appropriate in our view. Using the micro data from the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) Database, we show that while, in terms of attainment of tertiary education, women have caught up and often even outperform men, substantial gender differences in our earnings measure persist in all countries. Using the Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition method in an innovative age-period-cohort approach, we demonstrate that the role of education in explaining gender earnings differences has been limited and even decreased over cohorts. We also conclude that, when including persons not receiving earnings, earnings differences at levels far from gender equality will likely persist in the future, even if the “rise of women” in terms of education continues – as the share of women in higher education increases and the returns to education in particular for women declines." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

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Bartnik, Dominica, Paul Edward Gabriel & Susanne Schmitz (2022): The impact of occupational feminization on the gender wage gap and estimates of wage discrimination. In: Applied Economics Letters, Jg. 29, H. 17, S. 1605-1609. DOI:10.1080/13504851.2021.1949429

Abstract

"This study assesses the male-female wage gap across occupational categories ranked by gender density using data from the U.S. Current Population Survey. Our empirical findings suggest a consistent relationship between occupational feminization and the gender wage gap: female-dominated occupations have the lowest average earnings for men and women, whereas male-dominated occupations have the lowest gender wage gap. Gender-neutral occupations have the highest male and female wages, the largest gender wage gap, and the lowest estimated levels of wage discrimination." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

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Bennedsen, Morten, Birthe Larsen & Jiayi Wei (2022): Wage Transparency and the Gender Pay Gap: A Survey. (Working paper / Department of Economics, Copenhagen Business School 2022,17), Frederiksberg, 39 S.

Abstract

"We survey the literature on the effects of increased transparency of gender segregated wages on the pay gap between men and women in comparable jobs. Pay transparency is promoted by countries and supra-national institutions and we categorise reforms according to their content and coverage. A growing number of papers have used variations of difference-in-difference estimation methods to analyse the impact of reforms on the gender pay gap (GPG), and from these we extract four main findings: First, reform-based studies find that pay transparency reforms reduce the GPG in all countries but one, which finds no effect. Second, in Canada, Denmark and the UK, the reduction in the GPG from transparency reforms originate from a reduction in the growth rate of male income and less from an increase in women's pay. Third, there is fragmented evidence for the impact of transparency reforms on other labour outcomes and firm productivity. Fourth, the monetary implementation cost of transparency reforms is, in general, small both for individual firms and public administration. These finding are consistent with the notion that gender wage transparency reforms are an effective policy tool to reduce the GPG." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

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Bettin, Giulia, Isabella Giorgetti & Stefano Staffolani (2022): The Impact Of Covid-19 Lockdown On The Gender Gap In The Italian Labour Market. (Quaderno di ricerca / Università Politecnica delle Marche, Dipartimento di scienze economiche e sociali 460), Ancona, 69 S.

Abstract

"We study the gendered impact of the nationwide lockdown (March-May 2020) due to the Covid-19 pandemic on the Italian labour market. By using Labour Force Survey data on the first three quarters of 2020, we define a Triple Difference-in-Differences (DDD) strategy by exploiting the exact timing of the lockdown implementation. We found that in non essential sectors (treated group) the lockdown enlarged pre-existent gender inequalities in the extensive margin of labour force participation: the probability of job loss got 0.7 p.p. higher among female workers compared to their male counterparts, and this difference was mainly detected during the reopening period rather than in the strict lockdown phase. The probability to benefit from the wage guarantee fund (CIG) was also higher for female compared to male treated workers (3.6 p.p.), both during the lockdown and in the reopening phase. This is a great change with respect to the past, when men had always been more likely to benefit from this measure due to the fact that CIG application was traditionally restricted to male-dominated sectors of employment. On the other hand, no significant gender differences emerged among the treated group either on the intensive margin, in terms of working hours, or in terms of remote working, at least in the medium-term." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

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Biasi, Barbara & Heather Sarsons (2022): Flexible Wages, Bargaining, and the Gender Gap. In: The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Jg. 137, H. 1, S. 215-266. DOI:10.1093/qje/qjab026

Abstract

"Does flexible pay increase the gender wage gap? To answer this question we analyze the wages of public school teachers in Wisconsin, where a 2011 reform allowed school districts to set teachers’ pay more flexibly and engage in individual negotiations. Using quasi-exogenous variation in the timing of the introduction of flexible pay, driven by the expiration of preexisting collective-bargaining agreements, we show that flexible pay lowered the salaries of women compared with men with the same credentials. This gap is larger for younger teachers and smaller for teachers working under a female principal or superintendent. Survey evidence suggests that the gap is partly driven by women engaging less frequently in negotiations over pay, especially when the counterpart is a man. The gap is unlikely to be driven by observable gender differences in job mobility or teacher ability, although the threat of moving and a high demand for male teachers could exacerbate it. Our results suggest that pay discretion and wage bargaining are important determinants of the gender wage gap and that institutions, such as unions, might help narrow this gap." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

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Boll, Paul David, Lukas Mergele & Larissa Zierow (2022): Die Lohnlücke zwischen Frauen und Männern besteht bereits vor Abschluss des Studiums. In: Ifo-Schnelldienst, Jg. 75, H. 4, S. 66-69.

Abstract

"Die Lohnlücke zwischen Frauen und Männern, der sogenannte Gender Pay Gap, besteht bereits vor Abschluss des Studiums. Eine Untersuchung unter Studierenden, die neben ihrem Studium arbeiten, zeigte, dass Studentinnen im Durchschnitt etwa 6% weniger verdienen als Studenten. Nach Berücksichtigung verschiedener entlohnungsrelevanter Faktoren verringert sich die Lücke auf 4,1%. Hauptsächlich ist die Lücke auf die unterschiedlichen Beschäftigungen, die männliche und weibliche Studierende ausüben, zurückzuführen." (Autorenreferat, IAB-Doku)

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Bonaccolto-Töpfer, Marina & Stephanie Briel (2022): The gender pay gap revisited: Does machine learning offer new insights? In: Labour Economics, Jg. 78. DOI:10.1016/j.labeco.2022.102223

Abstract

"This paper analyses gender differences in pay at the mean as well as along the wage distribution in Germany. We estimate the adjusted gender pay gap applying a machine learning method (post-double-LASSO procedure). Comparing results from this method to conventional models in the literature, we find that the estimated gap differs substantially depending on the approach used. The main reason is that the machine learning approach selects numerous interactions and second-order polynomials as well as different covariates at various points of the distribution. This insight suggests that more flexible specifications are needed to estimate gender differences in pay more appropriately." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku, © 2022 Elsevier) ((en))

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Booth, Alison L. & Patrick Nolen (2022): Gender and Psychological Pressure in Competitive Environments: A Laboratory-based Experiment. In: Economica, Jg. 89, H. S1, S. S71-S85. DOI:10.1111/ecca.12417

Abstract

"Gender differences in paid performance have been found in many laboratory-based competitive experiments. They have been attributed to men and women responding differently to psychological pressure. To explore this further, we conducted a laboratory experiment comprising 444 subjects, and measured gender differences in performance in four distinct competitive situations: (i) the standard tournament game where the individual competes with three others and the winner takes all; (ii) an anonymized competition in which an individual competes against an imposed production target and is paid only if he or she exceeds it; (iii) a ‘personified’ competition where an individual competes against the previous performance of one anonymized person of unknown gender; (iv) a ‘gendered’ competition where an individual competes against a target based on the previous performance of one anonymized person whose gender is known. Only men responded to pressure differently in each situation; women responded the same to pressure no matter the situation. Moreover, the personified target caused men to increase performance more than under an anonymized target. When the gender of the person associated with the target was revealed, men worked even harder to outperform a woman but strived only to equal the target set by a male." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku, Published by arrangement with John Wiley & Sons) ((en))

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Briel, Stephanie, Aderonke Osikominu, Gregor Pfeifer, Mirjam Reutter & Sascha Satlukal (2022): Gender differences in wage expectations: the role of biased beliefs. In: Empirical economics, Jg. 62, H. 1, S. 187-212. DOI:10.1007/s00181-021-02044-0

Abstract

"We analyze gender differences in expected starting salaries along the wage expectations distribution of prospective university students in Germany, using elicited beliefs about both own salaries and salaries for average other students in the same field. Unconditional and conditional quantile regressions show 5–15% lower wage expectations for females. At all percentiles considered, the gender gap is more pronounced in the distribution of expected own salary than in the distribution of wages expected for average other students. Decomposition results show that biased beliefs about the own earnings potential relative to others and about average salaries play a major role in explaining the gender gap in wage expectations for oneself." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku, © Springer-Verlag) ((en))

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Brown, Sarah, Gurleen Popli & Alessandro Sasso (2022): Decomposing the gender reservation wage gap in Italy: A regional perspective. In: Journal of regional science, Jg. 62, H. 2, S. 499-540. DOI:10.1111/jors.12574

Abstract

"We investigate the determinants of the reservation wage gap between unemployed men and women, using data from the Italian Labour Force Survey. We conduct detailed decomposition analysis at the mean and at different percentiles of the reservation wage distribution using the Recentered Influence Function regression approach. Given the regional differences in labor market participation and employment rates across Italy, we focus on regional differences in the gender reservation wage gap. We find evidence of a positive gender reservation wage gap, which is highest in the South, with men reporting higher reservation wages across all regions and at all percentiles of the reservation wage distribution. The decomposition results suggest that, while a large part of the gender gap in reservation wages is explained by personal characteristics such as education and age, a significant portion of the gap is explained by different job preferences (especially commuting and working time preferences) between men and women. We also find evidence of differences in the relative effects of personal, household and job characteristics across regions, and at different percentiles of the reservation wage distribution." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku, Published by arrangement with John Wiley & Sons) ((en))

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Burns, Natasha, Kristina Minnick, Jeffry Netter & Laura Starks (2022): Gender Pay Gap across Cultures. (NBER working paper 30100), Cambridge, Mass, 55 S. DOI:10.3386/w30100

Abstract

"We employ a cross-country sample to examine whether cultural differences help explain gender compensation variations across corporate executives. The results show that the cultural differences, which are embedded in societies from long prior to the compensation decisions, provide significant explanatory power to the observed gender gap in executive compensation. Using an Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition with variables that have previously been shown to be significant determinants of executive compensation, we find that adding cultural measures to the model increases the explanatory power from 44% to 95% of the gender compensation gap." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

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Böheim, René & Sarah Gust (2022): The Austrian Pay Transparency Law and the Gender Wage Gap. In: CESifo forum, Jg. 23, H. 2, S. 25-28.

Abstract

"In our study (Böheim and Gust 2021), we analyzed the effect of the Austrian pay transparency law on men’s wages, women’s wages, and the gender wage gap. Austria was among the first countries in Europe to introduce pay transparency. This allowed us to study medium run effects as wages often need time to adjust. We also assessed if the law affected other labor market outcomes such as firm growth, turnover, and the share of female employees. We find no evidence that the Austrian pay transparency law reduced the gender pay gap. Our results are in line with Gulyas et al. (2021), who also studied the pay transparency law in Austria but focused on smaller firms which were subject to the law from 2014 onwards." (Text excerpt, IAB-Doku) ((en))

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Caliendo, Marco & Linda Wittbrodt (2022): Did the Minimum Wage Reduce the Gender Wage Gap in Germany? In: Labour Economics, Jg. 78. DOI:10.1016/j.labeco.2022.102228

Abstract

"In many countries, women are over-represented among low-wage employees, which is why a wage floor could benefit them particularly. Following this notion, we analyse the impact of the German minimum wage introduction in 2015 on the gender wage gap. Germany poses an interesting case study in this context, since it has a rather high gender wage gap and set the minimum wage at a relatively high level, affecting more than four million employees. Based on individual data from the Structure of Earnings Survey, containing information for over one million employees working in 60,000 firms, we use a difference-in-difference framework that exploits regional differences in the bite of the minimum wage. We find a significant negative effect of the minimum wage on the regional gender wage gap. Between 2014 and 2018, the gap at the 10th percentile of the wage distribution was reduced by 4.6 percentage points (or 32%) in regions that were strongly affected by the minimum wage compared to less affected regions. For the gap at the 25th percentile, the effect still amounted to −18%, while for the mean it was smaller (−11%) and not particularly robust. We thus find that the minimum wage can indeed reduce gender wage disparities. While the effect is highest for the low-paid, it also reaches up into higher parts of the wage distribution." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku, © 2022 Elsevier) ((en))

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Ceballos, Martha, Annick Masselot & Richard Watt (2022): Pay Transparency across Countries and Legal Systems. In: CESifo forum, Jg. 23, H. 2, S. 3-11.

Abstract

"The article proceeds as follows. In the next section, we detail the legislative experiences of the different countries that are included in our data set. The third section employs latent class analysis to group the different countries in our data set according to their gender pay gap and their pay transparency legislation. The fourth section posits a new perspective on the gender pay gap of non-legislating countries that leads to a theory (and indeed a value, at least for the countries in our data set) of a “natural rate” of the gender pay gap and a useful separation between countries with pay transparency legislation in place – those that out-perform the benchmark of not legislating, and those that under-perform relative to that same benchmark. Together with our latent class analysis groupings, this allows us to draw conclusions regarding the types of pay transparency law that appear to be more successful in the endeavor of reducing the gender pay gap. Finally, the fifth section concludes." (Text excerpt, IAB-Doku) ((en))

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Choe, Chung, SeEun Jungy & Ronald L. Oaxaca (2022): What's the Risk from Competing? Competition Aversion and the Gender Wage Gap. (IZA discussion paper 15048), Bonn, 52 S.

Abstract

"Laboratory experiments involving a real effort task are conducted to examine the importance of gender differences in competition aversion for generating gender wage gaps. Cross-subject design treatment and control experiments suggest that gender differences in risk aversion play no significant role in competitive (tournament) vs. piece-rate job choices and consequent gender wage gaps. Subjects in the treatment experiments are sorted into relatively more and relatively less risk averse groupings. Relatively less risk averse subjects are assigned to a risky job track involving a known constant probability of unemployment in each period. The gender wage gap contribution of gender differences in competition aversion compared with the contribution of gender differences in performance is especially large for relatively less risk averse subjects." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))