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The Gender Pay Gap for Private-Sector Employees in Canada and Britain

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  • Marie Drolet
  • Karen Mumford

Abstract

This paper uses British and Canadian linked employer-employee data to investigate the importance of the workplace for the gender wage gap. Implementing a novel decomposition approach, we find substantial unexplained wage gaps in the private sector of both countries. Whilst this wage differential is partially offset by women, on average, receiving a workplace specific return which is relatively higher than that paid to men, a substantial and significant unexplained within workplace wage gap remains which is considerably higher in Britain than in Canada. The results are consistent with a prima facie argument that country-specific factors, such as the wage setting environment, are important determinants in explaining the relative size of the gender wage gap.
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  • Marie Drolet & Karen Mumford, 2012. "The Gender Pay Gap for Private-Sector Employees in Canada and Britain," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 50(3), pages 529-553, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:brjirl:v:50:y:2012:i:3:p:529-553
    DOI: j.1467-8543.2011.00868.x
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    Cited by:

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    2. Antonczyk, Dirk & Fitzenberger, Bernd & Sommerfeld, Katrin, 2010. "Rising wage inequality, the decline of collective bargaining, and the gender wage gap," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(5), pages 835-847, October.
    3. Hussein Al-Zyoud & Walid Belassi, 2017. "Gender Segregation and the Gender Wage Gap: Rising Inequality in Alberta and Saskatchewan," Asian Social Science, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 13(2), pages 1-64, February.
    4. Christian Pfeifer, 2014. "The Gender Composition of Establishments' Workforces and Gender Gaps in Wages and Leadership Positions," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 82, pages 69-81, December.
    5. Rachel Aleks & Tina Saksida & Sam Kolahgar, 2021. "Practice What You Preach: The Gender Pay Gap in Labor Union Compensation," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(4), pages 403-435, October.
    6. Sarah Louise Jewell & Giovanni Razzu & Carl Singleton, 2020. "Who Works for Whom and the UK Gender Pay Gap," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 58(1), pages 50-81, March.
    7. Richard E. Mueller, 2022. "Gender pay gap in the public sector: Evidence from the Canadian Labour Force Survey," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 36(1), pages 29-70, March.
    8. Oliver Masakure & Kris Gerhardt, 2016. "Employee Commitment and Wages in the Private Sector," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 30(1), pages 38-60, March.
    9. Dickson Thomas NDAMSA & Aloysius Mom NJONG & Francis Menjo BAYE & Jackson YOUYEM, 2015. "Investigating the role of male advantage and female disadvantage in explaining the discrimination effect of the gender pay gap in the Cameroon labor market. Oaxaca-Ransom decomposition approach," EuroEconomica, Danubius University of Galati, issue 1(34), pages 55-72, May.
    10. Masakure, Oliver, 2016. "The effect of employee loyalty on wages," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 274-298.
    11. Forth, John & Theodoropoulos, Nikolaos, 2022. "Earnings Discrimination in the Workplace," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1110, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    12. Geraldine Healy & M. Mostak Ahamed, 2019. "Gender Pay Gap, Voluntary Interventions and Recession: The Case of the British Financial Services Sector," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 57(2), pages 302-327, June.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J0 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General

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