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The declining influence of workplace differences on the gender wage gap

Author

Listed:
  • John S. Heywood

    (University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee)

  • Nikolaos Theodoropoulos

    (University of Cyprus)

Abstract

Current policy aims at reducing the gender wage gap within firms yet historically much of the gap is generated by differences between workplaces. We use three waves of British matched employer-employee data to show that the current policy is increasingly relevant as the role of inter-workplaces differences has monotonically declined. Such differences contribute 72 percent of the explained gap in 1998 but only 43 percent in 2011. The size of the inter-establishment differences moves from larger than the residual within the firm unexplained gap to substantially smaller.

Suggested Citation

  • John S. Heywood & Nikolaos Theodoropoulos, 2020. "The declining influence of workplace differences on the gender wage gap," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 40(2), pages 1194-1200.
  • Handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-19-01061
    as

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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kimberly Bayard & Judith Hellerstein & David Neumark & Kenneth Troske, 2003. "New Evidence on Sex Segregation and Sex Differences in Wages from Matched Employee-Employer Data," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 21(4), pages 887-922, October.
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Gender Wage Gap; Workplace Effects; Gelbach Decomposition;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J7 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination
    • J3 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs

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