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Research papers on The gender pay gap

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  1. The Gender Wage Gap: Extent, Trends, and Explanations

    Francine D. Blau, Lawrence M. Kahn · 2017 · Journal of Economic Literature · 2,946 citations

    Using Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) microdata over the 1980–2010 period, we provide new empirical evidence on the extent of and trends in the gender wage gap, which declined considerably during this time. By 2010, conventional human capital variables taken together explained little of the gender wage gap, while gender differences in occupation and industry continued to be important. Moreover, the gender pay gap declined much more slowly at the top of the wage distribution than at the middle or bottom and by 2010 was noticeably higher at the top. We then survey the literature to identify what has been learned about the explanations for the gap. We conclude that many of the traditional

  2. Getting a Job: Is There a Motherhood Penalty?

    Shelley J. Correll, Stephen Benard, In Paik · 2007 · American Journal of Sociology · 2,475 citations

    Survey research finds that mothers suffer a substantial wage penalty, although the causal mechanism producing it remains elusive. The authors employed a laboratory experiment to evaluate the hypothesis that status-based discrimination plays an important role and an audit study of actual employers to assess its real-world implications. In both studies, participants evaluated application materials for a pair of same-gender equally qualified job candidates who differed on parental status. The laboratory experiment found that mothers were penalized on a host of measures, including perceived competence and recommended starting salary. Men were not penalized for, and sometimes benefited from, bein

  3. Dynamics of the Gender Gap for Young Professionals in the Financial and Corporate Sectors

    Marianne Bertrand, Claudia Goldin, Lawrence F. Katz · 2010 · American Economic Journal Applied Economics · 1,271 citations

    The careers of MBAs from a top US business school are studied to understand how career dynamics differ by gender. Although male and female MBAs have nearly identical earnings at the outset of their careers, their earnings soon diverge, with the male earnings advantage reaching almost 60 log points a decade after MBA completion. Three proximate factors account for the large and rising gender gap in earnings: differences in training prior to MBA graduation, differences in career interruptions, and differences in weekly hours. The greater career discontinuity and shorter work hours for female MBAs are largely associated with motherhood. (JEL J16, J22, J31, J44)

  4. The Economics of Women, Men, and Work.

    Glenna Spitze, Francine D. Blau, Marianne A. Ferber · 1987 · Contemporary Sociology A Journal of Reviews · 991 citations

    Chapter 1 Introduction What Economics Is About Uses of Economic Theory The Scope of Economics Individuals, Families, and Households A Note on Terminology Outline of the Book Appendix: A Review of Supply and Demand in the Labor Market Chapter 2 Women and Men: Historical Perspectives The Source of Gender Differences: Nature versus Nurture-The Ongoing Debate Factors Influencing Women's Relative Status Women's Roles and Economic Development The U.S. Experience Chapter 3 The Family as an Economic Unit: Theoretical Perspectives The Simple Neoclassical Model: Specialization and Exchange Disadvantages of Specialization Advantages of Families Beyond Specialization Transaction Cost and Bargaining Appr

  5. The U.S. Gender Pay Gap in the 1990S: Slowing Convergence

    Francine D. Blau, Lawrence M. Kahn · 2006 · Industrial and Labor Relations Review · 545 citations

    Using Michigan Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) data, the authors study the slowdown in the convergence of female and male wages in the 1990s compared to the 1980s. They find that changes in human capital did not contribute to the slowdown, since women's relative human capital improved comparably in the two decades. Occupational upgrading and deunionization had a larger positive effect on women's relative wages in the 1980s than in the 1990s, explaining part of the slower 1990s convergence. However, the largest factor was a much faster reduction of the “unexplained” gender wage gap in the 1980s than in the 1990s. The evidence suggests that changes in labor force selectivity, changes in

  7. Rising wage inequality and the U.S. gender gap

    Francine D. Blau, Lawrence M. Kahn · 1994 · American Economic Review · 165 citations

    The U.S. labor market has recently experienced two dramatic trends: a falling male-female pay gap and a rising level of labor-market inequality. After decades of near-constancy at about 60 percent, the ratio of women's to men's pay has risen steadily since the late 1970's. At the same time, there were substantial increases in overall wage inequality for both men and women (Lawrence F. Katz and Kevin M. Murphy, 1992; Blau and Kahn, 1993). Wage inequality rose both within and between education and experience groups, and this has been interpreted as reflecting primarily higher returns to both measured and unmeasured labor-market skills (Katz and Murphy, 1992; Chinhui Juhn et al., 1993). This pa

  9. Being a woman in an ICT job: an analysis of the gender pay gap and discrimination in Spain

    Mónica Segovia-Pérez, R. B. Castro Núñez, Rosa Santero Sánchez, et al. · 2019 · New Technology, Work and Employment · 53 citations

    "Despite policy initiatives aimed at promoting female access to jobs, the information and communication technology (ICT) professions have traditionally been largely monopolised by men. Segregation, gendered stereotypes and environmental factors have a clear impact on educational and professional choices, as well as on working conditions. The spread of ICT to all economic activities has meant that ICT specialists are now to be found everywhere, not only in the ICT sector where many stereotypes related to technical jobs persist. This work aims to analyse the gender wage gap and discrimination in ICT professions, with the emphasis on how working in an ICT‐intensive industry might affect that si

  10. Using occupational preference in estimating market wage discrimination : The case of the gender pay gap : Decomposition of a reduced form wage equation

    E. Solberg · 1999 · The American Journal of Economics and Sociology · 16 citations

    ABSTRACT Past occupational preference is used to estimate the gender pay gap. The use of predetermined variables in a reduced‐form wage equation avoids the bias caused by using variables that are correlated with the random error. Using a gender coefficient, the potential discriminatory gap is about 11.5 percent when past occupational preference is included. Decomposition yields an estimate of 10.5 percent when past occupational preference is included. In both cases, the discriminatory gap is close to that obtained when actual occupation is included. This suggests public policy directed toward reducing hiring discrimination by gender might be misdirected.

  11. Pursuing equal pay for equal work: Gender diversity in management positions and the gender pay gap throughout the wage distribution

    Rosa Santero-Sánchez, B. Núñez · 2022 · BRQ Business Research Quarterly · 15 citations

    Despite the massive incorporation of women into the labor market, equal pay for equal work remains a challenge. This article analyzes the influence of gender diversity in management positions on the gender wage gap (GWG) throughout the entire pay scale in Spain. The results show the existence of a GWG, particularly for wages below the average; though it decreases when female participation in management is higher. This is in line with the reduction of information asymmetry problems considered in statistical discrimination theories, which explain the barriers to promotion associated with dynamics at entry-level and low-qualified positions. JEL CLASSIFICATION: C31, J31, J71, M14

  15. The Gender Pay Gap: A Persistent Socioeconomic Challenge

    Stacey L. Morin · 2025 · SocioEconomic Challenges · 4 citations

    The gender pay gap remains a persistent socioeconomic challenge that limits economic growth and social equity, despite ongoing policy and corporate interventions. This study aims to analyze the key determinants of gender-based wage disparities, examining the historical evolution, theoretical explanations, and the role of institutional, policy, and corporate frameworks in shaping wage inequalities. The research focuses on occupational segregation, discrimination, labor market structures, and intersectional disparities to provide a comprehensive understanding of the mechanisms sustaining wage differences between men and women. Using a multidisciplinary approach, this study synthesizes existing

  16. The gender pay gap in UK universities 2004/5 to 2019/20

    Richard Harris, M. Maté‐Sánchez‐Val, Manuel Ruiz Marín · 2023 · Studies in Higher Education · 4 citations

    ABSTRACT Using UK data supplied by universities, this paper confirms that women academics earn less than men, even after controlling for a range of covariates. Despite narrowing after 2004/05, the observed (unconditional) pay gap was still −0.089 in 2019/20, while the conditional pay gap was relatively unchanged remaining at around −0.050 in 2019/20. The results are consistent with the literature on why pay gaps might occur, with the key disparity occurring when women face a higher cost of investment and statistical discrimination, linked to bias, to achieve promotion. That is, the results presented here suggest that earnings gaps are significantly reduced when grade-balanced gender sub-grou

  18. Breaking down the Gender Pay Gap through a machine learning model

    V. Edelsztein, Sebastián Ariel Waisbrot · 2023 · Convergencia Revista de Ciencias Sociales · 2 citations

    Being able to decompose the gender pay gap (GPG) and determine the contribution of each component is important to design appropriate policies to reduce it. With the aim of providing a new tool to achieve this, in this paper, we propose a decomposition approach based on a machine learning model. The tool was implemented on a population of 5,742 Argentinean IT-related workers to obtain the value of the adjusted and unadjusted GPG in a four-phase process: sample characterization, development of a wage predictor, calculation of adjusted GPG, and analysis of the explained component of GPG. According to our analysis, there is a GPG of 20%, 7,7% of which can be explained exclusively by direct discr

  20. Gender pay gaps in Morocco: urban-rural disparities across the wage distribution

    Fatima Mounir, Said Hanchane, Khalid Soudi · 2025 · Development Studies Research · 1 citations

    ABSTRACT Gender pay gaps persist as a significant feature of labor markets in developing countries, with disparities varying across the wage distribution and between urban and rural areas. Using data from the 2012, 2015, and 2017 Labor Force Surveys, we investigate wage discrimination and its implications for women's labor force participation, incorporating corrections for potential selection bias. Beyond the traditional Oaxaca–Blinder decomposition, we employ the Recentered Influence Function decomposition to analyze gaps across the distribution. Our results show that wage gaps are more pronounced at the lower end of the distribution, suggesting that women face significant challenges in sec

  22. Factor Affecting the Wage Gap Between Women and Men (Gender Pay Gap) Among the Millenial Generation in West Nusa Tenggara: A Blinder Decomposition Approach – Oaxaca.

    Selly Rahmawati, Himawan Sutanto, Vici Handalusia Husni · 2026 · JURNAL ECONOMINA

    This study aims to analyze the factors that influence the wage gap between female and male workers (gender pay gap) in the millennial generation in Mataram City, West Nusa Tenggara. The analysis is carried out both from the aspect of human capital, such as education and work experience, as well as discrimination and socio-cultural factors. This research method uses the Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition approach to distinguish the portion of the presentation caused by observable characteristics (explained) and the portion that cannot be explained (unexplained) which is often associated with discrimination. The results of the study are expected to provide an in-depth understanding of wage inequalit

  23. Assessing Wage Inequality with Machine Learning: Approaches for Measuring the Adjusted Gender Pay Gap

    Oliver Plueghan, Katharina-Maria Rehfeld · 2026 · IU Discussion Papers Human Resources

    This paper investigates the methodological performance of Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression and Random Forest machine learning algorithms in measuring adjusted gender pay gaps. The research is motivated by the European Union’s Pay Transparency Directive (2023/970), which mandates that employers report adjusted gender pay gaps. While Oaxaca-Blinder Decomposition and the underlying OLS regression have served as the industry standard for gap estimation, this paper examines whether machine learning approaches can better capture complex, nonlinear compensation relationships. Using synthetic datasets with controlled discrimination parameters, the study compares both methods across two sample

  24. What lies behind the gender pay gap in Pakistan

    · 2025

    Despite global efforts, women in Pakistan still earn 25% less per hour than men, with disparities widening for older and lower-income workers. This policy brief highlights key barriers, including discrimination, weak compliance with labour laws, and wage inequalities in the informal economy. It also outlines potential solutions, such as gender-neutral job evaluations, minimum wage adjustments, and stronger labour law enforcement. By prioritizing these reforms, Pakistan can foster a fairer, more inclusive labour market and empower women to reach their full economic potential.

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