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The Gender Pay Gap in Top Corporate Jobs in Denmark: Glass Ceilings, Sticky Floors or Both?

Author

Listed:
  • Smith, Nina

    (Aarhus University)

  • Smith, Valdemar

    (Aarhus School of Business)

  • Verner, Mette

    (Danish School of Media and Journalism)

Abstract

This paper analyses the gender gap in compensation for CEOs, Vice-Directors, and potential top executives in the 2000 largest Danish private companies based on a panel data set of employer-employees data covering the period 1996-2005. During the period, the overall gender gap in compensation for top executives and potential top executives decreased from 35 percent to 31 percent. However, contrary to many other studies, we do not find that the gender gap for Danish top executives disappears when controlling for observed individual and firm characteristics and unobserved individual heterogeneity. For CEOs, the raw compensation gap is 28 percent during the period while the estimated compensation gap after controlling for observed and unobserved characteristics increases to 30 percent. For executives below the CEO level, the estimated compensation gap is lower, ranging from 15 to 20 percent. Thus, we find evidence of both glass ceilings and sticky floors in Danish private firms.

Suggested Citation

  • Smith, Nina & Smith, Valdemar & Verner, Mette, 2010. "The Gender Pay Gap in Top Corporate Jobs in Denmark: Glass Ceilings, Sticky Floors or Both?," IZA Discussion Papers 4848, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
  • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp4848
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Luca Paolo Merlino & Pierpaolo Parrotta & Dario Pozzoli, 2018. "Gender Differences in Sorting," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 57(4), pages 671-709, October.
    2. Kunze, Astrid, 2013. "Gender differences in career progression: Does the effect of children capture low work effort?," VfS Annual Conference 2013 (Duesseldorf): Competition Policy and Regulation in a Global Economic Order 79705, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    3. Anders Frederiksen & Takao Kato, 2018. "Human Capital and Career Success: Evidence from Linked Employer‐Employee Data," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 128(613), pages 1952-1982, August.
    4. Marco Biagetti & Sergio Scicchitano, 2011. "A note on the gender wage gap among managerial positions using a counterfactual decomposition approach: sticky floor or glass ceiling?," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(10), pages 939-943.
    5. Smith, Nina & Smith, Valdemar & Verner, Mette, 2011. "Why Are So Few Females Promoted into CEO and Vice-President Positions? Danish Empirical Evidence 1997-2007," IZA Discussion Papers 5961, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Lam, Kevin C.K. & McGuinness, Paul B. & Vieito, João Paulo, 2013. "CEO gender, executive compensation and firm performance in Chinese‐listed enterprises," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 1136-1159.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    CEO compensation; glass ceiling; gender gap;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J33 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Compensation Packages; Payment Methods
    • M52 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Personnel Economics - - - Compensation and Compensation Methods and Their Effects
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination

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