A Meta-Analysis of the International Gender Wage Gap

.  Since the early 1970s, a number of authors have calculated gender wage differentials between women and men of equal productivity. This meta‐study provides a new quantitative review of this vast amount of empirical literature on gender wage differentials as it concerns not only differences in meth...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of economic surveys 2005-07, Vol.19 (3), p.479-511
Main Authors: Weichselbaumer, Doris, Winter-Ebmer, Rudolf
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Data analysis
Economic research
Economic surveys
Economic theory
Empirical research
Gender
Gender differences
Gender pay gap
Gender wage differential
International
Labour economics
Meta-analysis
Productivity
Quantitative analysis
Studies
Wage determination
Wage differential
Wage differentials
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Summary:.  Since the early 1970s, a number of authors have calculated gender wage differentials between women and men of equal productivity. This meta‐study provides a new quantitative review of this vast amount of empirical literature on gender wage differentials as it concerns not only differences in methodology, data, and time periods, but also different countries. We place particular emphasis on a proper consideration of the quality of the underlying study which is done by a weighting with quality indicators. The results show that data restrictions – i.e. the limitation of the analysis to new entrants, never‐marrieds, or one narrow occupation only – have the biggest impact on the resulting gender wage gap. Moreover, we are able to show what effect a misspecification of the underlying wage equation – like the frequent use of potential experience – has on the calculated gender wage gap. Over time, raw wage differentials worldwide have fallen substantially; however, most of this decrease is due to better labor market endowments of females.
ISSN:0950-0804
1467-6419
DOI:10.1111/j.0950-0804.2005.00256.x