The gender pay gap： Review and update

This paper explores the research behind the wage gap between men and women, the reasons for and extent of the gap, and strategies for dealing with gender pay discrepancies. Historically, gender discrimination was the traditional and easy explanation for pay discrepancies, but more aggressive enforcement of equal pay legislations has virtually diminished the validity of rationalizing the existence of pay differences solely on gender. Statistical data surrounding the pay gap point to other factors as more causal instruments that sustain and perpetuate the gap in spite of more than forty years of enforcement of equal pay legislations. The choices we make seem to predict and explain current wage gaps better than blatant gender discrimination does, and policies directed at improving those choices appear to be better strategic tools in closing the wage gap.     

What drives the reversal of the gender education gap? Evidence from Germany

We study the mechanisms that are associated with the gender education gap and its reversal in Germany. We focus on three outcomes, graduation from upper secondary school, any tertiary education and tertiary degree. Neither individual and family background nor labour market characteristics appear to be strongly associated with the gender education gap. There is some evidence that the gender gap in upper secondary education reflects the rising share of single parent households which impacts boys’ attainment more than girls’. The gender education gap in tertiary education is correlated with the development of class sizes and social norms.     

The fable paradigm of the gender pay gap： Evidence from Portuguese private firms

This study investigates gender income disparity in Portuguese firms using separate Tobit models for men and women. While job segregation seems to be one of the major sources of gender disparity, women do not appear to be systematically underpaid in predominantly female occupations, regardless of the industry. The authors found that gender pay gap is larger in domestic firms, and it increases with employees＇ accumulated tenure and decreases with advanced education for women and on labor market entry. Despite showing some encouraging cracks, the glass ceiling still continues to prevent women from reaching top management positions. Finally, despite it appears wage disparity does exist, and it will probably continue to exist, the results point towards a window of opportunity for women.     

Why do mothers breastfeed girls less than boys? Evidence and implications for child health in India

Breastfeeding is negatively correlated with future fertility because nursing temporarily reduces fecundity and because mothers usually wean on becoming pregnant again. We model breastfeeding under son-biased fertility preferences and show that breastfeeding duration increases with birth order, especially near target family size; is lowest for daughters and children without older brothers because their parents try again for a son; and exhibits the largest gender gap near target family size, when gender is most predictive of subsequent fertility. Data from India confirm each prediction. Moreover, child survival exhibits similar patterns, especially in settings where the alternatives to breastmilk are unsanitary.     

How wide is the gap? An investigation of gender wage differences using quantile regression

In this paper we re-examine the link between subjective perceptions and objective measures of wage discrimination by estimating the mean and several quantiles in the conditional wage distribution of men and women in order to decompose the gender wage gap into the part attributed to different characteristics and the part attributable to differential returns to these characteristics at points other than the conditional expectation. In the process we take into account the endogeneity of educational choice and the participation decision of women. The results suggest that the absolute wage gap and the component of the latter that can be attributed to different returns to characteristics increase over the wage scale.     

Democratization and the depoliticization of the banking sector: Are all banks affected equally?

This paper shows that the influence of the dramatic change in political ties of the Indonesian banking sector following democratization varies widely by bank ownership type. Panel estimates using several unique data-sets show that the decrease in political ties over democratization positively influences the performance of government-owned banks while negatively influencing the performance for privately held banks. Results remain robust to a variety of alternative hypotheses and sensitivity tests. This study provides evidence not only of the differential impact of depoliticization, but also suggests that the relationship between political connections and performance may be different based on bank ownership.     

The unequal distribution of unequal pay – An empirical analysis of the gender wage gap in Switzerland

In this paper we analyze the distribution of the gender wage gap. Using microdata for Switzerland we estimate conditional wage distribution functions and find that the total wage gap and its discrimination component are not constant over the range of wages. At low wages an overproportional part of the wage gap is due to discrimination. In a further analysis of specific individuals we examine the wage gap at different quantiles and propose a new measure to assess equal earnings opportunities. These additional results reveal that it is primarily low education that causes the large discrimination component at low wages. First version received: April 1999/Final version accepted: July 2000     

Competitive balance and the participation–spectatorship gap in Chinese table tennis

Excessive competitive imbalance holds the potential to render teams and, by extension, leagues inviable. The China Table Tennis Super League has languished in its attempt to catch on as a popular spectator sport in spite of the sport’s popularity as recreational activity. One of the primary reasons for the participation–spectatorship gap cited by officials is competitive imbalance. This research estimates a number of within-season balance measures, including the standard deviation of winning, concentration ratio, and Herfindahl–Hirschman Index. The results show that both the men’s and women’s leagues have been relatively balanced over time. Implications regarding competitive balance and other league policy considerations are explored.     

Employment and the risk of domestic violence: does the breadwinner’s gender matter?

This article studies the effect on the risk of female victimization of the employment status of the woman and her partner. We use individual-level data from the violence against women surveys for Spain, which also provide information on income and a rich set of sociodemographic characteristics. To address the potential endogeneity of the binary employment indicators, we exploit exogenous geographical information on the employment and unemployment rates by gender and age, within a multivariate probit framework. Our estimation results show that male partner employment plays a major role in the risk of physical violence, while female employment only lowers it when her partner is employed too. The lowest risk appears for more egalitarian couples in which both partners are employed.     

Are public and private outlays for physical and knowledge capital accumulation equally productive?

Utility firms are subject to peculiar regulatory characteristics that may allow for unique wealth effects resulting from acquisitions. The wealth effects derived from acquisitions of utility firms is measured and the analysis reveals negative wealth effects for acquirers and positive wealth effects for targets. However, the wealth effects are generally less favorable for utility firm acquirers than other acquirer firms because of the regulatory barriers that prevent them from pursuing attractive targets.     

Segregation and gender wage gaps in the private and the public sectors: an analysis of Danish linked employer–employee data, 2002–2012

This paper examines the relation between segregation and the gender wage gap in the public and the private sectors in Denmark from 2002 to 2012. The analysis shows that male–female differences in the share of females in occupations, industries, establishments and job cells (occupations within establishments) constitute 46 % of the raw gender wage gap in the private sector, while segregation in the public sector accounts for as much as 63 %. Segregation thus plays a substantially more important role in accounting for the gender wage gap in the public sector than in the private sector. While the importance of segregation for wage formation decreased substantially in the public sector over time, it only decreased slightly in the private sector. Although the remaining gender wage gap, after controlling for segregation, is close to zero in the public sector, a substantial within-job cell differential remains after controlling for segregation in the private sector.     

Do gender and age impact the time‐varying Okun's law? Evidence from South Korea

This study investigates the time‐varying Okun's law for different age and gender cohorts in South Korea over the 1980–2014 period. We found that the absolute value of the estimated Okun coefficients for all age cohorts and both genders become larger in a recession than in an expansion. We also found that the youth cohort (15–24 years old) for both genders is more sensitive to a negative economic impact than are older cohorts. These differences imply that when policymakers try to find a way of reducing the unemployment rate, they should consider differences in behaviour among these groups. Furthermore, the policies should be combined with age‐specific policies.     

Do cost efficiency gap and foreign competitors matter concerning optimal privatization policy at the free entry market?

In this paper, we demonstrate that in contrast to the case with exogenous number of foreign private firms, partial privatization is always the best policy for the public firm in long-run equilibrium, which casts doubt on the robust result in Matsumura and Kanda (J Econ 84(1):27–48, 2005) who argued that welfare-maximizing behavior by the public firm is always optimal in mixed markets. Critical cost gap determines that long-run degree of privatization is larger than the short-run one. In particular, regarding the scenario wherein one public firm competes with domestic private firms and foreign private firms, equilibrium price is lower than marginal cost of public firm instead of being equivalent to marginal cost of the public firm, and that public firm’s outputs, profit, and social welfare is the smallest in the concerned mixed oligopoly models.     

Is there really a gap between aggregate productivity and technology?

The important contribution by Basu and Fernald (2002 Basu, S and Fernald, JG. 2002. Aggregate productivity and aggregate technology. European Economic Review, 46: 963–91.  [Google Scholar]) shows that, in practice, there is a statistically significant gap between aggregate productivity and technology that can be attributed to inefficient product and labour markets. This is important, as it implies that the Solow residual is an imperfect index for aggregate technology change. We take a related approach and find that when we control for capacity utilization, time varying markup and account for externalities between industries, by employing a superior system estimator, the gap between the aggregate productivity and technology is shown to narrow considerably.     

Japan’s output gap estimation and ℓ 1 trend filtering

This paper estimates Japan’s output gap using the recently developed ? ₁ trend filter, which is an alternative to the popular Hodrick–Prescott (HP) filter. This new filter provides a piecewise linear trend line, which means it possibly provides better output gap estimates than the HP filter does for an economy such as Japan that has experienced some structural breaks.