nonetheless the relatively small size of the sector limits the contribution that financial sector pay has on income inequality to a small but noticeable amount simulations indicate that most of this contribution is explained by financial institutions paying salaries and bonuses which are above what employees with similar profiles get in other sectors estimations that allow for heterogeneity across workers reveal that this wage premium is more than twice as high for financial sector workers at the top of the distribution than at the bottom the labour market in finance displays other symptoms of imperfection with for example male financial sector workers earning a large wage premium over female financial sector workers again especially at the top