Rent Sharing and the Gender Bargaining Gap: Evidence from the Banking Sector

Abstract

"We use the removal of public bank guarantees in Germany as a quasi-natural experiment to estimate the gender bargaining power gap. Using comprehensive wage data from the universe of banking employees, combined with bank-level financial information, we find that women have approximately two-thirds of the bargaining power of men. Our model-based analysis suggests that this gender bargaining gap alone accounts for 16 to 28\% of the observed gender wage gap in the sector. These findings highlight an important driver of gender inequality: changes in firm profitability can reduce the gender wage gap, even without improvements in structural gender equality. This effect has significant implications for high-rent, high-inequality industries such as finance, where rent-sharing mechanisms favor male employees." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

Cite article

Coskun, S., Gartner, H. & Taskin, A. (2025): Rent Sharing and the Gender Bargaining Gap: Evidence from the Banking Sector. (CEPR discussion paper / Centre for Economic Policy Research 20752), London, 45 p.