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Rising Wage Inequality Within Firms: Evidence from Japanese health insurance society data

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  • SAITO Yukiko
  • KOUNO Toshiaki

Abstract

Using a novel dataset compiled from Japanese health insurance societies covering about 1,500 firms and 15 million employees in total, we examine wage inequality within and between firms. Employing the mean log deviation approach to decompose wage inequality into within-firm and between-firm inequality, we find that it increased among male employees during the period we examined (FY2003-2007). Moreover, even after controlling for changes in the compositional structure of firms' employees, an increase in wage inequality within firms can be observed, greatly contributing to the increase in overall wage inequality, which likely reflects the growing prevalence of performance-based wage systems.

Suggested Citation

  • SAITO Yukiko & KOUNO Toshiaki, 2012. "Rising Wage Inequality Within Firms: Evidence from Japanese health insurance society data," Discussion papers 12039, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    • Handle: RePEc:eti:dpaper:12039
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