IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp11502.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Minimum Wages and the Gender Gap in Pay: New Evidence from the UK and Ireland

Author

Listed:
  • Bargain, Olivier B.

    (Université de Bordeaux)

  • Doorley, Karina

    (Economic and Social Research Institute, Dublin)

  • Van Kerm, Philippe

    (LISER (CEPS/INSTEAD))

Abstract

Women are disproportionately in low paid work compared to men so, in the absence of rationing effects on their employment, they should benefit the most from minimum wage policies. This study examines the change in the gender wage gap around the introduction of minimum wages in Ireland and the United Kingdom. Using survey data for the two countries, we develop a decomposition of the change in the gender differences in wage distributions around the date of introduction of minimum wages. We separate out 'price' effects attributed to minimum wages from 'employment composition' effects. A significant reduction of the gender gap at low wages is observed after the introduction of the minimum wage in Ireland while there is hardly any change in the UK. Counterfactual simulations show that the difference between countries may be attributed to gender differences in non-compliance with the minimum wage legislation in the UK.

Suggested Citation

  • Bargain, Olivier B. & Doorley, Karina & Van Kerm, Philippe, 2018. "Minimum Wages and the Gender Gap in Pay: New Evidence from the UK and Ireland," IZA Discussion Papers 11502, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp11502
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp11502.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Peter Dolton & Chiara Rosazza Bondibene & Jonathan Wadsworth, 2012. "Employment, Inequality and the UK National Minimum Wage over the Medium‐Term," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 74(1), pages 78-106, February.
    2. Ganguli, Ina & Terrell, Katherine, 2006. "Institutions, markets and men's and women's wage inequality: Evidence from Ukraine," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 200-227, June.
    3. Metcalf, David, 1999. "The Low Pay Commission and the National Minimum Wage," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 109(453), pages 46-66, February.
    4. DiNardo, John & Fortin, Nicole M & Lemieux, Thomas, 1996. "Labor Market Institutions and the Distribution of Wages, 1973-1992: A Semiparametric Approach," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 64(5), pages 1001-1044, September.
    5. Christoph Rothe & Dominik Wied, 2013. "Misspecification Testing in a Class of Conditional Distributional Models," Journal of the American Statistical Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 108(501), pages 314-324, March.
    6. Huber, Martin & Melly, Blaise, 2011. "Quantile Regression in the Presence of Sample Selection," Economics Working Paper Series 1109, University of St. Gallen, School of Economics and Political Science.
    7. Dominique Meurs & Ariane Pailhe & Sophie Ponthieux, 2010. "Child-related Career Interruptions and the Gender Wage Gap in France," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 99-100, pages 15-46.
    8. Philippe Belley & Nathalie Havet & Guy Lacroix, 2012. "Wage Growth and Job Mobility in the Early Career : Testing a Statistical Discrimination Model of the Gender Wage Gap," Working Papers halshs-00735742, HAL.
    9. Roger Koenker & Samantha Leorato & Franco Peracchi, 2013. "Distributional vs. Quantile Regression," CEIS Research Paper 300, Tor Vergata University, CEIS, revised 17 Dec 2013.
    10. Claudia Olivetti & Barbara Petrongolo, 2008. "Unequal Pay or Unequal Employment? A Cross-Country Analysis of Gender Gaps," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 26(4), pages 621-654, October.
    11. Philippe Van Kerm, 2013. "Generalized measures of wage differentials," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 45(1), pages 465-482, August.
    12. Donal O'Neill & Brian Nolan & James Williams, 2006. "Evaluating the Introduction of a National Minimum Wage: Evidence from a New Survey of Firms in Ireland," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 20(1), pages 63-90, March.
    13. 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.
    14. Sara Rica & Juan Dolado & Vanesa Llorens, 2008. "Ceilings or floors? Gender wage gaps by education in Spain," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 21(3), pages 751-776, July.
    15. Stephen G. Donald & David A. Green & Harry J. Paarsch, 2000. "Differences in Wage Distributions Between Canada and the United States: An Application of a Flexible Estimator of Distribution Functions in the Presence of Covariates," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 67(4), pages 609-633.
    16. Chiara Mussida & Matteo Picchio, 2014. "The gender wage gap by education in Italy," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 12(1), pages 117-147, March.
    17. Philippe Belley & Nathalie Havet & Guy Lacroix, 2015. "Wage Growth and Job Mobility in the Early Career: Testing a Statistical Discrimination Model of the Gender Wage Gap☆," Research in Labor Economics, in: Gender in the Labor Market, volume 42, pages 231-260, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    18. Helen Robinson, 2005. "Regional evidence on the effect of the national minimum wage on the gender pay gap," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(7), pages 855-872.
    19. Marco Caliendo & Alexandra Fedorets & Malte Preuss & Carsten Schröder & Linda Wittbrodt, 2017. "The Short-Term Distributional Effects of the German Minimum Wage Reform," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 948, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    20. Alan S. Blinder, 1973. "Wage Discrimination: Reduced Form and Structural Estimates," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 8(4), pages 436-455.
    21. José Mata & José A. F. Machado, 2005. "Counterfactual decomposition of changes in wage distributions using quantile regression," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 20(4), pages 445-465.
    22. Ferreira,Francisco H. G. & Firpo,Sergio P. & Messina,Julian, 2017. "Ageing poorly? : accounting for the decline in earnings inequality in Brazil, 1995-2012," Policy Research Working Paper Series 8018, The World Bank.
    23. Richard Dickens & Rebecca Riley & David Wilkinson, 2014. "The UK minimum wage at 22 years of age: a regression discontinuity approach," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 177(1), pages 95-114, January.
    24. David Metcalf, 1999. "The British National Minimum Wage," CEP Discussion Papers dp0419, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    25. Moshe Buchinsky, 1998. "The dynamics of changes in the female wage distribution in the USA: a quantile regression approach," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 13(1), pages 1-30.
    26. Neumark, David & Wascher, William L., 2007. "Minimum Wages and Employment," Foundations and Trends(R) in Microeconomics, now publishers, vol. 3(1–2), pages 1-182, March.
    27. Dickens, Richard & Alan Manning, 2003. "The Impact of the National Minimum Wage on the Wage Distribution in a Low-Wage Sector," Royal Economic Society Annual Conference 2003 60, Royal Economic Society.
    28. David Metcalf, 1999. "The British National Minimum Wage," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 37(2), pages 171-201, June.
    29. Foresi, S. & Paracchi, F., 1992. "The Conditional Distribution of Excess Returns: An Empirical Analysis," Working Papers 92-49, C.V. Starr Center for Applied Economics, New York University.
    30. Wiji Arulampalam & Alison L. Booth & Mark L. Bryan, 2007. "Is There a Glass Ceiling over Europe? Exploring the Gender Pay Gap across the Wage Distribution," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 60(2), pages 163-186, January.
    31. Chzhen, Yekaterina & Mumford, Karen, 2011. "Gender gaps across the earnings distribution for full-time employees in Britain: Allowing for sample selection," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(6), pages 837-844.
    32. Albrecht, James & van Vuuren, Aico & Vroman, Susan, 2009. "Counterfactual distributions with sample selection adjustments: Econometric theory and an application to the Netherlands," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(4), pages 383-396, August.
    33. Martin Huber, 2014. "Treatment Evaluation in the Presence of Sample Selection," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 33(8), pages 869-905, November.
    34. Richard Dickens & Alan Manning, 2003. "Minimum Wage, Minimum Impact," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Richard Dickens & Paul Gregg & Jonathan Wadsworth (ed.), The Labour Market Under New Labour, chapter 13, pages 201-213, Palgrave Macmillan.
    35. Metcalf, David, 1999. "The British national minimum wage," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 20229, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    36. Mary Hallward-Driemeier & Bob Rijkers & Andrew Waxman, 2017. "Can Minimum Wages Close the Gender Wage Gap?," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 63(2), pages 310-334, June.
    37. Richard Dickens & Rebecca Riley & David Wilkinson, 2011. "The UK Minimum Wage at Age 22: A Regression Discontinuity Approach," Working Paper Series 2111, Department of Economics, University of Sussex Business School.
    38. repec:adr:anecst:y:2010:i:99-100:p:02 is not listed on IDEAS
    39. repec:bla:obuest:v:64:y:2002:i:5:p:417-48 is not listed on IDEAS
    40. Helen Robinson, 2002. "Wrong Side of the Track? The Impact of the Minimum Wage on Gender Pay Gaps in Britain," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 64(5), pages 417-448, December.
    41. Dora L. Costa & Matthew E. Kahn, 2008. "Learning from the Past," NBER Chapters, in: Heroes and Cowards: The Social Face of War, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    42. Stephen Machin & Alan Manning, 1994. "The Effects of Minimum Wages on Wage Dispersion and Employment: Evidence from the U.K. Wages Councils," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 47(2), pages 319-329, January.
    43. Heinze, Anja & Beninger, Denis & Beblo, Miriam & Laisney, François, 2003. "Measuring Selectivity-Corrected Gender Wage Gaps in the EU," ZEW Discussion Papers 03-74, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Amadxarif, Zahid & Angeli, Marilena & Haldane, Andrew G & Zemaityte, Gabija, 2020. "Understanding pay gaps," Bank of England working papers 877, Bank of England.
    2. Papuna Gogoladze, 2019. "Gender Income Gap Over Life-Cycle: Cross-Country Analysis," University of Tartu - Faculty of Economics and Business Administration Working Paper Series 117, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, University of Tartu (Estonia).
    3. Roantree, Barra & Barrett, Michelle & Redmond, Paul, 2022. "Poverty, income inequality and living standards in Ireland: 2nd annual report," Research Series, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), number JR1.
    4. Michelle Barrett & Karina Doorley & Paul Redmond & Barra Roantree, 2022. "How Has the Gender Earnings Gap in Ireland Changed in Thirty Years?," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 11(8), pages 1-21, August.
    5. Redmond, Paul & Doorley, Karina & McGuinness, Seamus, 2019. "The impact of a change in the National Minimum Wage on the distribution of hourly wages and household income in Ireland," Research Series, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), number RS86.
    6. Doorley, Karina, 2018. "Taxation, Work and Gender Equality in Ireland," IZA Discussion Papers 11495, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    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. BARGAIN Olivier & DOORLEY Karina & VAN KERM Philippe, 2016. "Minimum wages and the gender gap in pay. Evidence from the UK and Ireland," LISER Working Paper Series 2016-02, Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER).
    2. Olivier Bargain & Karina Doorley & Philippe Van Kerm, 2019. "Minimum Wages and the Gender GAP in Pay: New Evidence from the United Kingdom and Ireland," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 65(3), pages 514-539, September.
    3. Töpfer, Marina, 2017. "Detailed RIF Decomposition with Selection - The Gender Pay Gap in Italy," VfS Annual Conference 2017 (Vienna): Alternative Structures for Money and Banking 168422, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    4. Philippe Van Kerm, 2013. "Generalized measures of wage differentials," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 45(1), pages 465-482, August.
    5. Philippe Van Kerm & Seunghee Yu & Chung Choe, 2016. "Decomposing quantile wage gaps: a conditional likelihood approach," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series C, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 65(4), pages 507-527, August.
    6. Töpfer, Marina, 2017. "Detailed RIF decomposition with selection: The gender pay gap in Italy," Hohenheim Discussion Papers in Business, Economics and Social Sciences 26-2017, University of Hohenheim, Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences.
    7. Victor Chernozhukov & Iván Fernández‐Val & Blaise Melly, 2013. "Inference on Counterfactual Distributions," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 81(6), pages 2205-2268, November.
    8. Arceo-Gómez, Eva O. & Campos-Vázquez, Raymundo M., 2014. "Evolución de la brecha salarial de género en México," El Trimestre Económico, Fondo de Cultura Económica, vol. 0(323), pages .619-653, julio-sep.
    9. Picchio, Matteo & Mussida, Chiara, 2011. "Gender wage gap: A semi-parametric approach with sample selection correction," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(5), pages 564-578, October.
    10. Christofides, Louis N. & Polycarpou, Alexandros & Vrachimis, Konstantinos, 2013. "Gender wage gaps, ‘sticky floors’ and ‘glass ceilings’ in Europe," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(C), pages 86-102.
    11. Garbay, Sergio & Barrera, Raquel, 2021. "¿Mujeres en suelos pegajosos? Un análisis de la evolución de las distribuciones de ingresos laborales en Bolivia en el periodo 2011-2019," Revista Latinoamericana de Desarrollo Economico, Carrera de Economía de la Universidad Católica Boliviana (UCB) "San Pablo", issue 36, pages 123-168, Noviembre.
    12. Joanna Tyrowicz & Lucas van der Velde, 2017. "When the opportunity knocks: large structural shocks and gender wage gaps," GRAPE Working Papers 2, GRAPE Group for Research in Applied Economics.
    13. Sloczynski, Tymon, 2013. "Population Average Gender Effects," IZA Discussion Papers 7315, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    14. Antonczyk, Dirk & Fitzenberger, Bernd & Sommerfeld, Katrin, 2010. "Rising wage inequality, the decline of collective bargaining, and the gender wage gap," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(5), pages 835-847, October.
    15. Joanna Małgorzata Landmesser, 2019. "Decomposition Of Gender Wage Gap In Poland Using Counterfactual Distribution With Sample Selection," Statistics in Transition New Series, Polish Statistical Association, vol. 20(3), pages 171-186, September.
    16. 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.
    17. Thomas Grandner & Dieter Gstach, 2015. "Decomposing wage discrimination in Germany and Austria with counterfactual densities," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 42(1), pages 49-76, February.
    18. Landmesser Joanna Małgorzata, 2018. "The Use of Hazard Models for the Analysis of Income Inequalities in Poland," Folia Oeconomica Stetinensia, Sciendo, vol. 18(1), pages 144-156, June.
    19. Thomas Grandner & Dieter Gstach, 2012. "Decomposing wage discrimination in Germany and Austria with counterfactual densities," Department of Economics Working Papers wuwp145, Vienna University of Economics and Business, Department of Economics.
    20. Maasoumi, Esfandiar & Wang, Le, 2017. "What can we learn about the racial gap in the presence of sample selection?," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 199(2), pages 117-130.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    minimum wage; gender wage gap; distribution regression;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

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

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:iza:izadps:dp11502. 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: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    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.