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Does it matter who responded to the survey? Trends in the U.S. gender earnings gap revisited

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  • Jungmin Lee

    (Institute for Fiscal Studies and University of Arkansas)

  • Sokbae (Simon) Lee

    (Institute for Fiscal Studies and Columbia University)

Abstract

Blau and Kahn (JOLE, 1997; ILRR, 2006) decomposed trends in the U.S. gender earnings gap into observable and unobservable components using the PSID. They found that the unobservable part contributed significantly not only to the rapidly shrinking earnings gap in the 1980s, but also to the slowing-down of the convergence in the 1990s. In this paper, we extend their framework to consider measurement error due to the use of proxy/representative respondents. First, we document a strong trend of changing gender composition of household-representative respondents toward more females. Second, we estimate the impact of the changing gender composition on Blau and Kahn's decomposition. We find that a non-ignorable portion of changes in the gender gap could be attributed to changes in the self/proxy respondent composition. Specifically, the actual reduction in the gender gap can be smaller than what the estimates without taking into account the measurement error might suggest. We conclude that a careful validation study would be necessary to ascertain the magnitude of the spurious measurement error effects.

Suggested Citation

  • Jungmin Lee & Sokbae (Simon) Lee, 2011. "Does it matter who responded to the survey? Trends in the U.S. gender earnings gap revisited," CeMMAP working papers CWP05/11, Centre for Microdata Methods and Practice, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    • Handle: RePEc:ifs:cemmap:05/11
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    Cited by:

    1. Christopher R. Bollinger & Barry T. Hirsch, 2013. "Is Earnings Nonresponse Ignorable?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 95(2), pages 407-416, May.
    2. Misty Heggeness & Marta Murray-Close, 2019. "Manning Up and Womaning Down: How Husbands and Wives Report Earnings When She Earns More," Opportunity and Inclusive Growth Institute Working Papers 28, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    3. Jose Galdo & Ana C Dammert & Degnet Abebaw, 2021. "Gender Bias in Agricultural Child Labor: Evidence from Survey Design Experiments," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 35(4), pages 872-891.
    4. Anja Roth & Michaela Slotwinski, 2018. "Gender Norms and Income Misreporting within Households," CESifo Working Paper Series 7298, CESifo.
    5. Katarzyna Saczuk & Olga Zajkowska, 2024. "Measuring labour force participation during pandemics and methodological changes," NBP Working Papers 372, Narodowy Bank Polski.
    6. Christopher R. Bollinger & Barry T. Hirsch, 2010. "GDP & Beyond – die europäische Perspektive," RatSWD Working Papers 165, German Data Forum (RatSWD).
    7. Bollinger, Christopher R. & Hirsch, Barry & Hokayem, Charles M. & Ziliak, James P., 2018. "Trouble in the Tails? What We Know about Earnings Nonresponse Thirty Years after Lillard, Smith, and Welch," IZA Discussion Papers 11710, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

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    JEL classification:

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

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