Swimming Upstream, Floating Downstream: Comparing Women's Relative Wage Progress in the United States and Denmark

Applying a new decomposition method to U.S. PSID and Danish Longitudinal Sample data, the authors compare how U.S. and Danish gender wage gaps developed between 1983 and 1995. In Denmark, they find, the wage gap widened, because the worsening in women's relative returns to observable human capi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Industrial & labor relations review 2006-01, Vol.59 (2), p.243-266
Main Authors: Gupta, Nabanita Datta, Oaxaca, Ronald L., Smith, Nina
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Comparative analysis
Crosscultural Analysis
Data analysis
Denmark
Employment
Gender equity
Gender wage gap
Human Capital
Income Inequality
Labor management relations
Labor markets
Labour market
Labour relations
Men
Public sector
Sex discrimination
Statistical significance
Studies
U.S.A
United States of America
Wage differential
Wage differentials
Wages
Women
Women workers
Working Women
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Summary:Applying a new decomposition method to U.S. PSID and Danish Longitudinal Sample data, the authors compare how U.S. and Danish gender wage gaps developed between 1983 and 1995. In Denmark, they find, the wage gap widened, because the worsening in women's relative returns to observable human capital attributes, as well as in their ranking relative to men in unobservable productive attributes, more than offset their wage gains from improved observable qualifications relative to men's. In the United States, in contrast, the gender convergence in qualifications offset adverse influences, including increasing wage dispersion throughout the labor market, to result in a narrowing of the gap. The largest increase in the gap in Denmark was experienced by women in the top earnings decile, and the largest decline in the gap in the United States affected those at the top and in the middle of the distribution.
ISSN:0019-7939
2162-271X
DOI:10.1177/001979390605900204