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The Gender Gap in Top Corporate Jobs

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Author Info
Marianne Bertrand
Kevin F. Hallock

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Abstract

This paper studies the gender compensation gap among high-level executives in US corporations. We use the ExecuComp data set that contains information on total compensation for the top five highest paid executives of a large group of US firms over the period 1992-1997. About 2.5% of the executives in the sample are women. These women earn about 45% less than their male counterparts. As much as 75% of this gap can be accounted for by the fact that women manage smaller companies and are less likely to be CEO, Chair, or President of their company. The unexplained gender gap can be reduced to less than 5% when one further accounts for the fact that female executives are younger and have less seniority than male executives. Over the period under study, women have nearly tripled their participation in the top executive ranks and have also strongly improved their relative compensation, mostly by gaining representation into the larger corporations. While the absence of a significant gender gap (once we control for measurable characteristics) implies that women and men who hold similar jobs in firms of similar size received fairly equal treatment in terms of compensation, it does not rule out the possibility of discrimination in terms of gender segregation or promotion.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 7931.

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Date of creation: Oct 2000
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:7931

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  1. Sherwin Rosen, 1990. "Contracts and the Market for Executives," NBER Working Papers 3542, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Kimberly Bayard & Judith Hellerstein & David Neumark & Kenneth Troske, 1999. "New Evidence on Sex Segregation and Sex Differences in Wages from Matched Employee-Employer Data," NBER Working Papers 7003, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  3. Ransom, Michael R. & Megdal, Sharon Bernstein, 1993. "Sex differences in the academic labor market in the affirmative action era," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 21-43, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Lazear, Edward P & Rosen, Sherwin, 1990. "Male-Female Wage Differentials in Job Ladders," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 8(1), pages S106-23, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  5. Brian J. Hall & Jeffrey B. Liebman, 1998. "Are CEOs Really Paid Like Bureaucrats?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 113(3), pages 653-691, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  6. Johnson, George E & Stafford, Frank P, 1974. "The Earnings and Promotion of Women Faculty," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 64(6), pages 888-903, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Blau, Francine D & Ferber, Marianne A, 1987. "Discrimination: Empirical Evidence from the United States," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(2), pages 316-20, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  8. Katz, David A, 1973. "Faculty Salaries, Promotion, and Productivity at a Large University," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 63(3), pages 469-77, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. Biddle, Jeff E & Hamermesh, Daniel S, 1998. "Beauty, Productivity, and Discrimination: Lawyers' Looks and Lucre," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 16(1), pages 172-201, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  10. Oaxaca, Ronald, 1973. "Male-Female Wage Differentials in Urban Labor Markets," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 14(3), pages 693-709, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  11. Oaxaca, Ronald L. & Ransom, Michael R., 1994. "On discrimination and the decomposition of wage differentials," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 61(1), pages 5-21, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  12. Paul Gregg & Stephen Machin, . "Is the glass ceiling cracking? Gender compensation differentials and access to promotion among UK executives," NIESR Discussion Papers 50, National Institute of Economic and Social Research.
  13. Erica L. Groshen, 1987. "The structure of the female/male wage differential: is it who you are, what you do, or where you work?," Working Paper 8708, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. [Downloadable!]
  14. Wood, Robert G & Corcoran, Mary E & Courant, Paul N, 1993. "Pay Differences among the Highly Paid: The Male-Female Earnings Gap in Lawyers' Salaries," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 11(3), pages 417-41, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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