IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp2443.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Gender Differences in Labor Supply to Monopsonistic Firms: An Empirical Analysis Using Linked Employer-Employee Data from Germany

Author

Listed:
  • Hirsch, Boris

    (Leuphana University Lüneburg)

  • Schank, Thorsten

    (University of Mainz)

  • Schnabel, Claus

    (University of Erlangen-Nuremberg)

Abstract

This paper investigates women's and men's labor supply to the firm within a structural approach based on a dynamic model of new monopsony. Using methods of survival analysis and a linked employer-employee dataset for Germany, we find that labor supply elasticities are small (0.9-2.4) and that women's labor supply to the firm is substantially less elastic than men's (which is the reverse of gender differences in labor supply usually found at the level of the market). One implication of these findings is that the gender pay gap could be the result of wage discrimination by profit-maximizing monopsonistic employers.

Suggested Citation

  • Hirsch, Boris & Schank, Thorsten & Schnabel, Claus, 2006. "Gender Differences in Labor Supply to Monopsonistic Firms: An Empirical Analysis Using Linked Employer-Employee Data from Germany," IZA Discussion Papers 2443, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp2443
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp2443.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Audra J. Bowlus & Zvi Eckstein, 2002. "Discrimination and Skill Differences in an Equilibrium Search Model," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 43(4), pages 1309-1345, November.
    2. Arntz, Melanie, 2005. "The Geographical Mobility of Unemployed Workers: Evidence from West Germany," ZEW Discussion Papers 05-34, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    3. Manning, Alan, 2011. "Imperfect Competition in the Labor Market," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 11, pages 973-1041, Elsevier.
    4. Mitchel Y. Abolafia (ed.), 2005. "Markets," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 2788.
    5. Erling Barth & Harald Dale-Olsen, 1999. "Monopsonistic Discrimination and the Gender-Wage Gap," NBER Working Papers 7197, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Gartner, Hermann, 2005. "The imputation of wages above the contribution limit with the German IAB employment sample," FDZ Methodenreport 200502_en, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany].
    7. Hirsch, Barry T. & Schumacher, Edward J., 2005. "Classic or new monopsony? Searching for evidence in nursing labor markets," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(5), pages 969-989, September.
    8. William M. Boal & Michael R. Ransom, 1997. "Monopsony in the Labor Market," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 35(1), pages 86-112, March.
    9. Boris Hirsch & Thorsten Schank & Claus Schnabel, 2006. "Gender Differences in Labor Supply to Monopsonistic Firms: An Empirical Analysis Using Linked Employer-Employee Data from Germany," Working Papers 006, Bavarian Graduate Program in Economics (BGPE).
    10. Alda, Holger & Bender, Stefan & Gartner, Hermann, 2005. "The linked employer-employee dataset of the IAB (LIAB)," IAB-Discussion Paper 200506, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany].
    11. repec:iab:iabfme:200502(en is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Becker, Gary S., 1971. "The Economics of Discrimination," University of Chicago Press Economics Books, University of Chicago Press, edition 2, number 9780226041162, September.
    13. Ransom, Michael R. & Oaxaca, Ronald L., 2005. "Sex Differences in Pay in a "New Monopsony" Model of the Labor Market," IZA Discussion Papers 1870, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    14. Pierre Cahuc & André Zylberberg, 2004. "Labor Economics," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 026203316x, December.
    15. Holger Alda & Stefan Bender & Hermann Gartner, 2005. "European Data Watch: The linked employer-employee dataset created from the IAB establishment panel and the process-produced data of the IAB (LIAB)," Schmollers Jahrbuch : Journal of Applied Social Science Studies / Zeitschrift für Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaften, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin, vol. 125(2), pages 327-336.
    16. Green, Francis & Machin, Stephen & Manning, Alan, 1996. "The Employer Size-Wage Effect: Can Dynamic Monopsony Provide an Explanation?," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 48(3), pages 433-455, July.
    17. Burdett, Kenneth & Mortensen, Dale T, 1998. "Wage Differentials, Employer Size, and Unemployment," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 39(2), pages 257-273, May.
    18. Campbell, Carl M, III, 1993. "Do Firms Pay Efficiency Wages? Evidence with Data at the Firm Level," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 11(3), pages 442-470, July.
    19. Alda, Holger, 2005. "Datenbeschreibung der Version 2.0 des LIAB-Längsschnittmodells (LIAB Longitudinal Model Version 2.0 -Data Description)," FDZ Datenreport. Documentation on Labour Market Data 200508_de, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany].
    20. Alan Manning & Ted To, 2002. "Oligopsony and Monopsonistic Competition in Labor Markets," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 16(2), pages 155-174, Spring.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Depew, Briggs & Sørensen, Todd A., 2013. "The elasticity of labor supply to the firm over the business cycle," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 196-204.
    2. Hirsch, Boris, 2007. "Joan Robinson Meets Harold Hotelling : A Dyopsonistic Explanation of the Gender Pay Gap," Discussion Papers 51, Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Chair of Labour and Regional Economics.
    3. Michael R Ransom & Ronald L. Oaxaca, 2010. "New Market Power Models and Sex Differences in Pay," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 28(2), pages 267-289, April.
    4. J. David Brown & Julie L. Hotchkiss & Myriam Quispe-Agnoli, 2013. "Does Employing Undocumented Workers Give Firms A Competitive Advantage?," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(1), pages 158-170, February.
    5. Heinze, Anja, 2009. "Earnings of Men and Women in Firms with a Female Dominated Workforce: What Drives the Impact of Sex Segregation on Wages?," ZEW Discussion Papers 09-012, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    6. Briggs Depew & Peter Norlander & Todd A. Sørensen, 2017. "Inter-firm mobility and return migration patterns of skilled guest workers," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 30(2), pages 681-721, April.
    7. Michael R. Ransom & Ronald L. Oaxaca, 2008. "New Market Power Models and Sex Differences in Pay," Working Papers 1110, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    8. Ilan Tojerow, 2008. "Industry Wage Differentials Rent Sharing and Gender in Belgium," Reflets et perspectives de la vie économique, De Boeck Université, vol. 0(3), pages 55-65.
    9. Hirsch, Boris & Schank, Thorsten & Schnabel, Claus, 2006. "Gender Differences in Labor Supply to Monopsonistic Firms : An Empirical Analysis Using Linked Employer-Employee Data from Germany," Discussion Papers 47, Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Chair of Labour and Regional Economics.
    10. Julie L. Hotchkiss & Myriam Quispe-Agnoli, 2009. "Employer monopsony power in the labor market for undocumented workers," FRB Atlanta Working Paper 2009-14, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
    11. Brown, J. David & Hotchkiss, Julie L. & Quispe-Agnoli, Myriam, 2009. "Undocumented Worker Employment and Firm Survival," IZA Discussion Papers 3936, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    12. Anja Heinze & Elke Wolf, 2010. "The intra-firm gender wage gap: a new view on wage differentials based on linked employer–employee data," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 23(3), pages 851-879, June.
    13. J. David Brown & Julie L. Hotchkiss & Myriam Quispe-Agnoli, 2008. "Undocumented worker employment and firm survivability," FRB Atlanta Working Paper 2008-28, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Boris Hirsch & Thorsten Schank & Claus Schnabel, 2010. "Differences in Labor Supply to Monopsonistic Firms and the Gender Pay Gap: An Empirical Analysis Using Linked Employer-Employee Data from Germany," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 28(2), pages 291-330, April.
    2. Boris Hirsch & Thorsten Schank & Claus Schnabel, 2008. "Differences in Labor Supply to Monopsonistic Firms and the Gender Pay Gap: An Empirical Analysis Using Linked Employer-Employee Data from Germany," Working Papers 1111, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    3. Michael R Ransom & Ronald L. Oaxaca, 2010. "New Market Power Models and Sex Differences in Pay," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 28(2), pages 267-289, April.
    4. Giovanni Sulis, 2011. "What can monopsony explain of the gender wage differential in Italy?," International Journal of Manpower, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 32(4), pages 446-470, July.
    5. Clémence Berson, 2016. "Local labor markets and taste-based discrimination," IZA Journal of Labor Economics, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 5(1), pages 1-21, December.
    6. Manning, Alan, 2011. "Imperfect Competition in the Labor Market," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 11, pages 973-1041, Elsevier.
    7. Samuel Muehlemann & Paul Ryan & Stefan C. Wolter, 2013. "Monopsony Power, Pay Structure, and Training," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 66(5), pages 1097-1114, October.
    8. Boris Hirsch & Steffen Mueller, 2014. "Firm leadership and the gender pay gap: do active owners discriminate more than hired managers?," Journal for Labour Market Research, Springer;Institute for Employment Research/ Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), vol. 47(1), pages 129-142, March.
    9. Gibson, Matthew, 2021. "Employer Market Power in Silicon Valley," IZA Discussion Papers 14843, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Boris Hirsch, 2009. "The Gender Pay Gap Under Duopsony: Joan Robinson Meets Harold Hotelling," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 56(5), pages 543-558, November.
    11. Anja Heinze & Elke Wolf, 2010. "The intra-firm gender wage gap: a new view on wage differentials based on linked employer–employee data," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 23(3), pages 851-879, June.
    12. Dobbelaere, Sabien & Kiyota, Kozo & Mairesse, Jacques, 2015. "Product and labor market imperfections and scale economies: Micro-evidence on France, Japan and the Netherlands," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 290-322.
    13. Boris Hirsch & Michael Oberfichtner & Claus Schnabel, 2014. "The levelling effect of product market competition on gender wage discrimination," IZA Journal of Labor Economics, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 3(1), pages 1-14, December.
    14. Benson, Alan, 2013. "Firm-sponsored general education and mobility frictions: Evidence from hospital sponsorship of nursing schools and faculty," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 149-159.
    15. Ilan Tojerow, 2008. "Industry Wage Differentials Rent Sharing and Gender in Belgium," Reflets et perspectives de la vie économique, De Boeck Université, vol. 0(3), pages 55-65.
    16. David Berger & Kyle Herkenhoff & Simon Mongey, 2022. "Labor Market Power," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 112(4), pages 1147-1193, April.
    17. Brown, J. David & Hotchkiss, Julie L. & Quispe-Agnoli, Myriam, 2009. "Undocumented Worker Employment and Firm Survival," IZA Discussion Papers 3936, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    18. J. David Brown & Julie L. Hotchkiss & Myriam Quispe-Agnoli, 2008. "Undocumented worker employment and firm survivability," FRB Atlanta Working Paper 2008-28, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
    19. Barth, Erling & Dale-Olsen, Harald, 2009. "Monopsonistic discrimination, worker turnover, and the gender wage gap," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(5), pages 589-597, October.
    20. Depew, Briggs & Sørensen, Todd A., 2013. "The elasticity of labor supply to the firm over the business cycle," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 196-204.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    discrimination; labor supply; monopsony; gender;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J42 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Monopsony; Segmented Labor Markets
    • J60 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - General
    • J71 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination - - - Hiring and Firing

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp2443. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.