Investigating gender wage gap in employment

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to investigate the gender wage disparity in paid employment and self-employment. To achieve this objective, the Cameroon Household Consumption Survey of 2007 is used. The main question considered in this paper is why women paid employment and self-employment wages are relatively low. In a whole, what are the underlying factors that generate and explain wage gap between men and women householders in employment? Design/methodology/approach - First, the paper uses the Oaxaca-Blinder Decomposition to explain wage gap. Thereafter, the Quantile Regression Decomposition using Machado and Mata approach is applied in order to see the gap at different levels of the wage distribution. Findings - The main finding indicates that in both methods, the wage gap is due to an unexplained component in self-employment and explained component in paid employment, particularly with strong effects at the extreme of wage distribution. Research limitations/implications - The topic of this paper helps to explain and analyse the functioning of the Cameroonian labour market. Practical implications - The findings can be applied to narrow the gender wage gap by eliminating discrimination and approving the principle of equal opportunity, support policies that reduce obstacles preventing women from starting and developing their businesses to encourage more women to become entrepreneurs and achieve harmonisation between work and family life. Originality/value - Using available data survey, this paper is the first to identify and decompose the causes of paid employment and self-employment gender wage gap in Cameroon.