measuring and decomposing the gender pay gap a new frontier approach abstract the gender pay gap measures the differences in the wages earned by female workers when compared to male workers accurately measuring the gender pay gap is an important exercise in order to assess how far we are from the ideal of equal pay for work of equal value determining the different sources of the gender pay gap is also very important in order to design appropriate policies for eliminating this gap we develop an enhanced method to measure and decompose the gender pay gap this method is based on the data envelopment analysis dea technique and on the malmquist index mi we use dea and the mi to construct an index reflecting an adjusted measure of the gender pay gap taking into account multiple productive characteristics and multiple types of pay furthermore we propose a decomposition of the gender pay gap into four components same gender pay gap cross gender frontier gap magnitude productive characteristics bias and pay package bias the method is applied to data relative to 15 712 men and 17 175 women working as business and administration associate professionals in the finance and insurance industry in 20 countries the results reveal the existence of a gender pay gap in all countries and that the value of the gap and of its components vary considerably between countries requiring different policies to tackle it

equal pay by gender and by nationality a comparative analysis of switzerland s unequal equal pay policy regimes across time what explains the adoption of two different policies on equal pay by gender epg and by nationality epn in switzerland and why is the liberal litigation based equal pay policy regime set up by the gender equality act of 1996 much less effective than the neocorporatist accompanying measures to the bilateral european union switzerland agreement on free movement of persons adopted in 1999 to ensure equal pay for workers of different national origins the formation of two different policy regimes cannot be explained by different levels of political will equally different varieties of capitalism cannot explain the setup of the two different equal pay policy regimes within the very same country instead our qualitative comparative analysis across time suggests that the differences can be best explained by a particular constellation of attributes namely the use of different policy frames that is anti discrimination in the epg and unfair competition in the epn case and the different setting of interest politics epitomised by the opposite stances adopted by switzerland s employer associations in the two cases

wage losses for displaced workers many studies have shown that displaced workers experience substantial wage reductions that are strongly related to their predisplacement job tenure and experience this paper is an assessment of whether firm closures or downturns in more broadly defined labor markets drive the extreme wage losses of high tenure high experience displaced workers i show that the relatively high wage losses of high experience displaced workers are primarily due to their heightened sensitivity to downturns in their state industry and occupation however the large wage losses of high tenure displaced workers are not explained by their sensitivity to these local downturns one interpretation of these facts is that firm specialization is linked primarily to firm specific experience but not to general labor market experience

disability job mismatch earnings and job satisfaction in australia we examine the relationship between disability job mismatch earnings and job satisfaction using panel estimation on data from the household income and labour dynamics in australia hilda survey 2001 08 while we do not find any relationship between work limiting disability and overskilling it appears that there is a positive relationship between work limiting disability and overeducation which is consistent with disability onset leading to downward occupational movement at least in relative terms we find a negative correlation between work limiting disability and both earnings and job satisfaction however there is only evidence of a causal relationship in terms of the latter where the impact of disability is found to be multifaceted

learning by doing and optimal factor demand abstract in this paper we consider the problem of the firm s optimal plans for factor usage under conditions of profit maximization two factors of capital and labor are considered in a dynamic choice system where labor is endowed with a capacity to learn on the job but capital is not by specifying the problem as an optimal control process two shadow prices of capital and labor services are derived we then advance a theory of investment demand and labor employment as a joint process the effects of learning by doing and labor turnover rate on the paths of optimal investment and employment plans are investigated using the method of sensitivity analysis we also derive testable hypotheses about the effects of variations in the market wage rate and the interest rate on the optimal investment and employment plans of the firm

does the level of occupational aggregation affect estimates of the gender wage gap the traditional decomposition of the gender wage gap distinguishes between a component attributable to gender differences in productivity related characteristics and a residual component that is often taken as a measure of discrimination this study of data from the 1989 canadian labour market activity survey shows that when occupation is treated as a productivity related characteristic the proportion of the gender wage gap labeled explained increases with the number of occupational classifications distinguished however on the basis of evidence that occupational differences reflect the presence of barriers faced by women attempting to enter male dominated occupations the authors conclude that occupation should not be treated as a productivity related characteristic and in a decomposition of the gender wage gap that treats occupation as endogenously determined they find that the level of occupational aggregation has little effect on the size of the explained component of the gap

gender wage inequality in inclusive and exclusive industrial relations systems a comparison of argentina and chile drawing on an empirical and comparative mixed methods analysis of argentina and chile this article investigates arguments about the role of inclusive versus exclusive industrial relations systems in promoting gender wage equity and enabling attractive wage returns to women investing in higher education our findings confirm the importance of argentina s inclusive industrial relations system in narrowing gender pay differences to a greater extent than chile nevertheless chile s industrial relations institutions are not wholly exclusive its high level statutory minimum wage has played a strongly distributive role in the 2000s and compressed wages in the lower half of the wage distribution also notable is the finding from quantile regression that highly educated women in high paid jobs enjoy a larger wage premium in the class equal argentina than in chile despite a far wider wage gap between low high educated workers in chile overall

equal pay as a moving target international perspectives on forty years of addressing the gender pay gap this paper provides an overview of the key factors impacting upon the gender pay gap in the uk europe and australia forty years after the implementation of the first equal pay legislation the pay gap remains a key aspect of the inequalities women face in the labour market while the overall pay gap has tended to fall in many countries over the past forty years it has not closed in some countries it has been stubbornly resistant or has even widened in reviewing the collection of papers that make up this special issue we identify four broad themes with which to group the contributions and draw out the explanations for diverse trends theoretical and conceptual debates legal developments and their impacts wage setting institutions and changing employer demands and newly emerging pay inequalities between and within educational and ethnic groups across the four themes we underline how the trends in the gender pay gap capture the dynamism of inequalities as the market power of different groups and stakeholders changes over times three key dimensions emerge from the papers to provide a framework for future research and policy discourse the relationship between litigation and bargaining strategies the interaction between wage setting institutions and new organisational practices and the increasing and range of diversity or equality strands competing for equal treatment we conclude that progress towards closing the gender pay gap will not be easy will require a collective effort of various actors and will not be quick

interindustry variation in the costs of job displacement job displacement entails a substantial wage reduction for most displaced workers we show that the mean reduction the tenure profile of reductions and the experience profile of reductions all vary substantially across industries we then link this interindustry variation to analogous variation in firm size unionization wage levels and the incidence of employer provided training while these industry characteristics explain some of the interindustry variation in mean wage reductions they do not explain variation in the tenure or experience profiles of wage reductions

from wage regulation to wage gap how wage setting institutions and structures shape the gender wage gap across three industries in 24 european countries and germany whilst a common and persisting feature of advanced market economies the gender wage gap nevertheless varies across countries amongst the factors affecting this wage gap industrial relations and industry differences still require further research using data from eu silc in 25 european countries this article analyses how national wage setting institutions impact wage differences between male and female full time employees in three distinct industries complementing the country comparison is an in depth study of the german case using data from the german linked employer employee database shedding light on the interaction of industry specific wage setting regulations and gender equity in living wages findings from the international comparison suggest a substantial gender wage gap for full time employees across industries with specific country patterns country patterns seem to be due to the overall influence of trade unions and the relationship between pay bargaining strategies and specific minimum wage policies the german case adds to these findings by analysing the impact of sectoral models of wage bargaining for industry specific gender wage gaps focussing on living wages for skilled full time employees

contradictions and misalignments in the eu approach towards the gender pay gap the aim of this paper is to highlight the tensions within the eu s governance architecture concerning pay equality specifically after a preliminary outline of the theoretical discussion on the eu s new old governance the analysis focuses on two empirical fields the first one enables an assessment of the contradictions between old and new governance in eu equal pay policy this analysis highlights the inconsistencies between the architecture of the antidiscrimination framework established following the eu s old governance by law approach and the assessment of equal pay public policy measures in the context of the eu s new governance by numbers approach to this extent the problems related to the political use of the unadjusted gender pay gap gpg indicator are pointed out the second empirical field enables an assessment of the tensions within the eu s new governance system itself specifically between the approach in the area of equal pay and in the area of economic policy with specific regard to the participatory role of the social partners in tackling the gpg if the role of the social partners is emphasised in several policy documents the potentialities of their action are seriously jeopardised by the push for decentralisation of collective bargaining aimed at anchoring wages to productivity fostered by the eu s governance reforms responding to the crisis in particular by the euro plus pact and by the six pack regulations of 2011 as the paper finally remarks both empirical fields of investigation confirm a narrowing down of pay equality in the context of an eu flexibility centred and neoliberalist political perspective

are litigation and collective bargaining complements or substitutes for achieving gender equality a study of the british equal pay act we present a socio legal case study of the recent equal pay litigation wave in britain which saw an unprecedented increase in the number of claims triggered in part by the entry of no win no fee law firms into this part of the legal services market although the rise in litigation led to greater adversarialism in pay bargaining litigation and collective bargaining mostly operated as complementary mechanisms in advancing an equality agenda although there are limits to the effectiveness of law driven strategies in the face of organisational pressures to canalise and diffuse human rights litigation may be a more potent force for social change than some recent accounts have suggested

the 40 year pursuit of equal pay a case of constantly moving goalposts progress towards equal pay is elusive this article reviews debates on and prescribed remedies for gender pay equality over the past 40 years of equal pay policy it looks at pay from four perspectives the economic the sociological the institutional and the organisational and explores how and why once an apparent remedy for unequal pay is pursued the goalposts tend to shift the argument is made that the difficulties in securing long term progress may be attributed to a number of factors including the multifaceted nature of pay as a social phenomenon the challenge of pursuing social objectives in a rapidly changing and fragmenting environment the need for political will not technical solutions to achieve redistribution and the potential for gender inequalities to re emerge in new forms

the gender wage gap among phds in the uk this article analyses the gender wage gap gwg among phd graduates in the uk 42 months after their graduation in 2004 5 we find a sizeable overall gwg of 19 log percentage points which is explained by a large wage premium for men outside academia compared to women and men in academia the gwg in academia is small in comparison whilst the gwg outside academia is very high six months after graduation and remains largely unaltered the gwg inside academia doubles in the following three years the oaxaca decomposition suggests that for this relatively homogeneous group the gwg cannot be explained by differences in endowments university and employment characteristics we find stark differences in wage patterns between the fields of study and a strongly increasing coefficient effect for higher quantiles

understanding the variations of unions litigation strategies to promote equal pay reflection on the british case despite their traditional mistrust of the use of the law and their uneasy relationship with the concept of equality british trade unions have used the law in various ways in order to advance both gender and pay equality since 1970 some trade unionists have been making use of european legislation to improve legal norms and build a strong body of case law they have developed legal expertise and detailed knowledge of the practicalities of the law and have supported numerous claims however this use of litigation has not developed consistently over time and across unions litigation has been quite controversial within the trade union movement this article seeks to investigate what are the conditions under which some trade unionists have decided to rely upon litigation to further their female members interests depending on the time period the article emphasises the crucial role these local trade unionists have played in the development of equal pay litigation the paper builds on a developmental approach that differentiates several stages or phases in which union s litigation strategies for equal pay figure differently

ethnicity and gender in the labour market in central and south eastern europe the roma are both the largest minority ethnic group in central and south eastern europe csee and the one that suffered most from transition to the market still today nearly 40 years after the introduction of the european union eu 1975 discrimination directive and with the end of the roma decade 2005 15 in sight people from the roma minority have unemployment rates far above and employment rates and wages far below those of majority populations one issue that has received relatively little attention concerns the double discrimination facing roma women not only do roma women face poorer employment and wage outcomes in the labour market than non roma women in most csee countries the gender earnings gap is significantly larger amongst roma compared to non roma this paper seeks to analyse and explain differences in the gender gap in the earnings of roma the paper employs a non parametric matching approach to identify the main factors underlying the gender difference educational attainment plays a relatively small role explaining only around one fifth of the gap industrial and occupational segregation appear to be playing a strong role as do the civil status of individuals household socio economic status and whether or not individuals live in a predominantly roma community

australia s gender pay equity legislation how new how different what prospects australia s equal pay laws have recently been renovated through the workplace gender equality act 2012 and the fair work act 2009 in light of these changes it is timely to ask how effective australia s legislative approach is likely to be for progressing pay equity this article presents an analysis of australia s current equal pay provisions assessing their potential on the basis of their operation to date and through recent experience in canada and the uk although focused on outcomes we argue that australia s new workplace based mechanism under the workplace gender equality act may prove relatively ineffective in both diagnosing and remedying pay inequality in comparative perspective the fair work act provisions provide significant capacity to improve pay equity across large sectors of the labour market to date the use of these provisions point to some practical limitations in realising this potential moreover the inadequate legislative and policy integration between labour market sectoral workplace and individual approaches together with a wavering political commitment to equality legislation generally suggest gender pay inequity will remain a persistent feature of australian employment

gender pay gaps and the restructuring of graduate labour markets in southern europe in this article we investigate whether education job mismatches and growing occupational diversity are important explanatory factors of gender pay gaps amongst university graduates in southern europe namely in portugal spain and italy we use standard decomposition techniques and test the implications of controlling for selection bias our results indicate that over education and greater occupational segregation associated with the emergence of new graduate job profiles are important determinants of earnings inequality whilst our focus is on graduates early careers demonstrating that occupational assignment and selection into employment shape gender pay gaps amongst the highly skilled provides a more pessimistic view on the ability of educational expansion or equal pay legislation to significantly reduce gender pay inequality southern european economies are also particularly interesting to look at since there may be a greater degree of mismatch between the pace of higher education expansion and the changes in the job structure making women particularly vulnerable to over education

family policies wage structures and gender gaps sources of earnings inequality in 20 countries this study uncovers an unexpected effect of family friendly policies on women s economic attainments using hierarchical linear models the analysis combines individual level data obtained from th

do high performance work practices exacerbate or mitigate the gender pay gap the impact of performance oriented work practices on the gender pay gap has been the subject of considerable conjecture but little empirical investigation using the 2004 and 2011 british workplace employment relations surveys the analysis finds that whilst average earnings are significantly higher for men and women across private sector workplaces that have introduced so called high performance work practices the presence of such practices is not associated with a narrowing of the gender pay gap and if anything tends to exacerbate the differential in earnings between men and women data from the 2004 survey suggest that women are more likely to work in high performance workplaces but this is not the case for 2011 there is no evidence that gender segregation is significantly less in high performance workplaces than in workplaces taking a more traditional route policy makers and employing organisations therefore need to be careful in reconciling their performance and equality strategies in particular they need to examine whether the former are truly gender neutral this requires additional measures possibly the introduction of human resource audits in the public and private sectors

swimming upstream trends in the gender wage differential in the 1980s using michigan panel study of income dynamics data for 1979 and 1988 we analyze how a falling gender wage gap occurred despite changes in wage structure unfavorable to low wage workers the decrease is traced to gender specific factors which more than counterbalanced changes in measured and unmeasured prices working against women supply shifts net of demand were unfavorable for women generally and hurt high skilled more than middle and low skilled women by analyzing wages we find support for the notion of a gender twist in supply and demand having its largest negative effect on high skilled women

regulation distance labour segmentation and gender gaps existing theories on human capital labor market segmentation and discrimination fail to fully explain gender gaps for example the large gender gap in elite occupations where women apparently possess high labor market power this chapter seeks a more complete occupation related understanding through the interaction between labor segmentation regulation content and regulation distance the last referring to the extent to which employment of particular workers is un regulated regulation distance encompasses a continuum from regulation proximity to market proximity the domestic sphere the state unions and class relations all influence the content of regulation each of these also influences norms by which groups in power operate a greater reliance on the market does not necessarily remove pay distortions rather it might increase their impact through gendered norms