IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jcecon/v30y2002i2p276-295.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Gender Wage Gap in Bulgaria: A Semiparametric Estimation of Discrimination

Author

Listed:
  • Jolliffe, Dean

Abstract

Bulgaria's transition to a market economy has coincided with a large increase in wage inequality. Given the emphasis on wage leveling in pre-transition Bulgaria, the rise in wage inequality may be due to managers rewarding more productive workers; or it may be the result of rewarding non-economic characteristics such as gender. Using data from the 1995, nationally representative Bulgaria Integrated Household Survey, I examine whether gender discrimination is an important factor determining the gap in wages between men and women and the extent to which gender discrimination affects wage inequality. I model wage determination with a correction for sample selection as a Type III Tobit and estimate this model with the Honor?? et al. (1997) semiparametric estimator. Unlike the classic Heckman correction for sample selection, this estimator is consistent in the presence of heteroscedasticity. I bootstrap to estimate standard errors. Using separate wage regression estimates for men and women, an Oaxaca decomposition indicates that women's wages are 25 percent lower than men's wages and 85 percent of this differential is due to discrimination, or more precisely, due to differences in how men and women are rewarded for the same characteristics.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Jolliffe, Dean, 2002. "The Gender Wage Gap in Bulgaria: A Semiparametric Estimation of Discrimination," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 276-295, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jcecon:v:30:y:2002:i:2:p:276-295
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0147-5967(02)91774-9
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Branko Milanovic, 1999. "Explaining the increase in inequality during transition," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 7(2), pages 299-341, July.
    2. Powell, James L, 1986. "Symmetrically Trimmed Least Squares Estimation for Tobit Models," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 54(6), pages 1435-1460, November.
    3. Milan Vodopivec & Peter F. Orazem, 2000. "Male-female differences in labor market outcomes during the early transition to market: The cases of Estonia and Slovenia," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 13(2), pages 283-303.
    4. Honore, Bo E. & Kyriazidou, Ekaterini & Udry, Christopher, 1997. "Estimation of Type 3 Tobit models using symmetric trimming and pairwise comparisons," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 76(1-2), pages 107-128.
    5. Appleton, Simon & Hoddinott, John & Krishnan, Pramila, 1999. "The Gender Wage Gap in Three African Countries," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 47(2), pages 289-312, January.
    6. Oaxaca, Ronald, 1973. "Male-Female Wage Differentials in Urban Labor Markets," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 14(3), pages 693-709, October.
    7. Christopher Ferrall, 1998. "Routines to maximize a function," Stata Technical Bulletin, StataCorp LP, vol. 7(38).
    8. Blau, Francine D & Kahn, Lawrence M, 1992. "The Gender Earnings Gap: Learning from International Comparisons," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(2), pages 533-538, May.
    9. Powell, James L., 1984. "Least absolute deviations estimation for the censored regression model," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 303-325, July.
    10. Arabmazar, Abbas & Schmidt, Peter, 1981. "Further evidence on the robustness of the Tobit estimator to heteroskedasticity," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 253-258, November.
    11. Psacharopoulos, George, 1994. "Returns to investment in education: A global update," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 22(9), pages 1325-1343, September.
    12. Svejnar, Jan, 1999. "Labor markets in the transitional Central and East European economies," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 42, pages 2809-2857, Elsevier.
    13. Nelson, Forrest D, 1981. "A Test for Misspecification in the Censored Normal Model," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 49(5), pages 1317-1329, September.
    14. Heckman, James J, 1974. "Shadow Prices, Market Wages, and Labor Supply," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 42(4), pages 679-694, July.
    15. David Neumark, 1988. "Employers' Discriminatory Behavior and the Estimation of Wage Discrimination," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 23(3), pages 279-295.
    16. Commander, Simon & Tolstopiatenko, Andrei, 1996. "Why is unemployment low in the former Soviet Union? : enterprises restructuring and the structure of compensation," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1617, The World Bank.
    17. Hurd, Michael, 1979. "Estimation in truncated samples when there is heteroscedasticity," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 11(2-3), pages 247-258.
    18. Pagan, Adrian & Vella, Frank, 1989. "Diagnostic Tests for Models Based on Individual Data: A Survey," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 4(S), pages 29-59, Supplemen.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jolliffe, Dean, 2004. "The impact of education in rural Ghana: examining household labor allocation and returns on and off the farm," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 287-314, February.
    2. Qi Li & Jeffrey Scott Racine, 2006. "Nonparametric Econometrics: Theory and Practice," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 8355.
    3. Gustavsen, Geir Waehler, 2005. "Public Policies and the Demand for Carbonated Soft Drinks: A Censored Quantile Regression Approach," 2005 International Congress, August 23-27, 2005, Copenhagen, Denmark 24737, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    4. Paternostro, Stefano & Sahn, David E., 1999. "Wage determination and gender discrimination in a transition economy : the case of Romania," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2113, The World Bank.
    5. Niels-Hugo Blunch, 2018. "Just like a woman? New comparative evidence on the gender income gap across Eastern Europe and Central Asia," IZA Journal of Migration and Development, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 8(1), pages 1-41, December.
    6. Brück, Tilman & Danzer, Alexander M. & Muravyev, Alexander & Weißhaar, Natalia, 2007. "Determinants of Poverty during Transition: Household Survey Evidence from Ukraine," Proceedings of the German Development Economics Conference, Göttingen 2007 33, Verein für Socialpolitik, Research Committee Development Economics.
    7. Jolliffe, Dean & Campos, Nauro F., 2005. "Does market liberalisation reduce gender discrimination? Econometric evidence from Hungary, 1986-1998," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 1-22, February.
    8. repec:pru:wpaper:40 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Franco Peracchi, 1988. "Bounded Influence Estimators for the Censored Regression Model," UCLA Economics Working Papers 487, UCLA Department of Economics.
    10. Fortin, Nicole & Lemieux, Thomas & Firpo, Sergio, 2011. "Decomposition Methods in Economics," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 1, pages 1-102, Elsevier.
    11. Donald, Stephen G., 1995. "Two-step estimation of heteroskedastic sample selection models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 65(2), pages 347-380, February.
    12. Darryl Holden, 2011. "Testing for heteroskedasticity in the tobit and probit models," Journal of Applied Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(4), pages 735-744, November.
    13. Jolliffe, Dean, 1997. "Whose education matters in the determination of household income," FCND discussion papers 39, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    14. Blunch, Niels-Hugo & Das, Maitreyi Bordia, 2007. "Changing norms about gender inequality in education : evidence from Bangladesh," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4404, The World Bank.
    15. Spermann, Alexander & Strotmann, Harald, 2005. "The Targeted Negative Income Tax (TNIT) in Germany: Evidence from a Quasi Experiment," ZEW Discussion Papers 05-68, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    16. Daniela Piazzalunga & Maria Laura Di Tommaso, 2019. "The increase of the gender wage gap in Italy during the 2008-2012 economic crisis," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 17(2), pages 171-193, June.
    17. Mark Ottoni Wilhelm, 2008. "Practical Considerations for Choosing Between Tobit and SCLS or CLAD Estimators for Censored Regression Models with an Application to Charitable Giving," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 70(4), pages 559-582, August.
    18. Dohmen, Thomas & Lehmann, Hartmut & Zaiceva, Anzelika, 2008. "The gender earnings gap inside a Russian firm : first evidence from personnel data - 1997 to 2002," Zeitschrift für ArbeitsmarktForschung - Journal for Labour Market Research, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany], vol. 41(2/3), pages 157-179.
    19. Inés P. Murillo & Hipólito Simón, 2014. "La Gran Recesión y el diferencial salarial por género en España," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 208(1), pages 39-76, March.
    20. Kenneth Y. Chay & James L. Powell, 2001. "Semiparametric Censored Regression Models," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 15(4), pages 29-42, Fall.
    21. Günalp, Burak & Cilasun, Seyit Mümin & Acar, Elif Öznur, 2013. "Male-Female Labor Market Participation and the Extent of Gender-Based Wage Discrimination in Turkey," MPRA Paper 51503, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I2 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • C14 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Semiparametric and Nonparametric Methods: General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jcecon:v:30:y:2002:i:2:p:276-295. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/622864 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.