IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/scandj/v126y2024i1p3-37.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Decomposing gender wage gaps: a family economics perspective

Author

Listed:
  • Dorothée Averkamp
  • Christian Bredemeier
  • Falko Juessen

Abstract

We propose a simple way to embed family‐economics arguments for pay differences between genders into standard decomposition techniques. To account appropriately for the role of the family in the determination of wages, one has to compare men and women with similar own characteristics – and with similar partners. In US survey data, we find that our extended decomposition explains considerably more of the wage gap than a standard approach, in line with our theory that highlights the role of career prioritization in dual‐earner couples.

Suggested Citation

  • Dorothée Averkamp & Christian Bredemeier & Falko Juessen, 2024. "Decomposing gender wage gaps: a family economics perspective," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 126(1), pages 3-37, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:scandj:v:126:y:2024:i:1:p:3-37
    DOI: 10.1111/sjoe.12542
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/sjoe.12542
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/sjoe.12542?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Patricia Cortés & Jessica Pan, 2023. "Children and the Remaining Gender Gaps in the Labor Market," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 61(4), pages 1359-1409, December.
    2. Ingvild Almås & Andreas Kotsadam & Espen R. Moen & Knut Røed, 2023. "The Economics of Hypergamy," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 58(1), pages 260-281.
    3. Francine D. Blau & Lawrence M. Kahn & Matthew Comey & Amanda Eng & Pamela Meyerhofer & Alexander Willén, 2020. "Culture and gender allocation of tasks: source country characteristics and the division of non-market work among US immigrants," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 18(4), pages 907-958, December.
    4. Uri Gneezy & Kenneth L. Leonard & John A. List, 2009. "Gender Differences in Competition: Evidence From a Matrilineal and a Patriarchal Society," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(5), pages 1637-1664, September.
    5. Claudia Olivetti & Barbara Petrongolo, 2016. "The Evolution of Gender Gaps in Industrialized Countries," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 8(1), pages 405-434, October.
    6. Strittmatter, Anthony & Wunsch, Conny, 2021. "The Gender Pay Gap Revisited with Big Data: Do Methodological Choices Matter?," IZA Discussion Papers 14128, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. Christine L. Exley & Muriel Niederle & Lise Vesterlund, 2020. "Knowing When to Ask: The Cost of Leaning In," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(3), pages 816-854.
    8. Mincer, Jacob, 1978. "Family Migration Decisions," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 86(5), pages 749-773, October.
    9. Jérôme Adda & Christian Dustmann & Katrien Stevens, 2017. "The Career Costs of Children," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 125(2), pages 293-337.
    10. Jeffrey A. Flory & Andreas Leibbrandt & John A. List, 2015. "Do Competitive Workplaces Deter Female Workers? A Large-Scale Natural Field Experiment on Job Entry Decisions," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 82(1), pages 122-155.
    11. Azmat, Ghazala & Petrongolo, Barbara, 2014. "Gender and the labor market: What have we learned from field and lab experiments?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 32-40.
    12. Alexandre Mas & Amanda Pallais, 2017. "Valuing Alternative Work Arrangements," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(12), pages 3722-3759, December.
    13. Sumru Altuğ & Robert A. Miller, 1998. "The Effect of Work Experience on Female Wages and Labour Supply," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 65(1), pages 45-85.
    14. Pertold-Gebicka, Barbara & Pertold, Filip & Datta Gupta, Nabanita, 2016. "Employment Adjustments around Childbirth," IZA Discussion Papers 9685, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    15. Foged, Mette, 2016. "Family migration and relative earnings potentials," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 87-100.
    16. Ellen K. Nyhus & Empar Pons, 2012. "Personality and the gender wage gap," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(1), pages 105-118, January.
    17. Esfandiar Maasoumi & Le Wang, 2019. "The Gender Gap between Earnings Distributions," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 127(5), pages 2438-2504.
    18. Clément Bosquet & Pierre‐Philippe Combes & Cecilia García‐Peñalosa, 2019. "Gender and Promotions: Evidence from Academic Economists in France," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 121(3), pages 1020-1053, July.
    19. Thomas Dohmen & Armin Falk, 2011. "Performance Pay and Multidimensional Sorting: Productivity, Preferences, and Gender," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(2), pages 556-590, April.
    20. Petrongolo, Barbara & Ronchi, Maddalena, 2020. "Gender gaps and the structure of local labor markets," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    21. Guido Matias Cortes & Giovanni Gallipoli, 2018. "The Costs of Occupational Mobility: An Aggregate Analysis," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 16(2), pages 275-315.
    22. Janice Compton & Robert A. Pollak, 2007. "Why Are Power Couples Increasingly Concentrated in Large Metropolitan Areas?," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 25(3), pages 475-512.
    23. Bertrand, Marianne, 2011. "New Perspectives on Gender," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 17, pages 1543-1590, Elsevier.
    24. Thomas Buser & Huaiping Yuan, 2019. "Do Women Give Up Competing More Easily? Evidence from the Lab and the Dutch Math Olympiad," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 11(3), pages 225-252, July.
    25. Laura Pilossoph & Shu Lin Wee, 2021. "Household Search and the Marital Wage Premium," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 13(4), pages 55-109, October.
    26. Melanie Wasserman, 2023. "Hours Constraints, Occupational Choice, and Gender: Evidence from Medical Residents," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 90(3), pages 1535-1568.
    27. DiNardo, John & Fortin, Nicole M & Lemieux, Thomas, 1996. "Labor Market Institutions and the Distribution of Wages, 1973-1992: A Semiparametric Approach," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 64(5), pages 1001-1044, September.
    28. Claudia Olivetti, 2006. "Changes in Women's Hours of Market Work: The Role of Returns to Experience," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 9(4), pages 557-587, October.
    29. Flinn, Christopher J. & Todd, Petra E & Zhang, Weilong, 2018. "Personality traits, intra-household allocation and the gender wage gap," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 191-220.
    30. Ricardo Mora, 2008. "A nonparametric decomposition of the Mexican American average wage gap," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(4), pages 463-485.
    31. Jung, SeEun & Choe, Chung & Oaxaca, Ronald L., 2018. "Gender wage gaps and risky vs. secure employment: An experimental analysis," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 112-121.
    32. Hugo Ñopo, 2008. "Matching as a Tool to Decompose Wage Gaps," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 90(2), pages 290-299, May.
    33. Marianne Bertrand & Emir Kamenica & Jessica Pan, 2015. "Gender Identity and Relative Income within Households," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 130(2), pages 571-614.
    34. Christine Braun & Charlie Nusbaum & Peter Rupert, 2021. "Labor Market Dynamics and the Migration Behavior of Married Couples," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 42, pages 239-263, October.
    35. Markus Frölich, 2007. "Propensity score matching without conditional independence assumption--with an application to the gender wage gap in the United Kingdom," Econometrics Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 10(2), pages 359-407, July.
    36. Ernesto Reuben & Paola Sapienza & Luigi Zingales, 2024. "Overconfidence and Preferences for Competition," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 79(2), pages 1087-1121, April.
    37. Shoshana Neuman & Ronald Oaxaca, 2004. "Wage Decompositions with Selectivity-Corrected Wage Equations: A Methodological Note," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 2(1), pages 3-10, April.
    38. Patricia Cortés & Jessica Pan, 2019. "When Time Binds: Substitutes for Household Production, Returns to Working Long Hours, and the Skilled Gender Wage Gap," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 37(2), pages 351-398.
    39. Claudia Olivetti & Barbara Petrongolo, 2016. "The Evolution of Gender Gaps in Industrialized Countries," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 8(1), pages 405-434, October.
    40. Francine D. Blau & Lawrence M. Kahn, 2017. "The Gender Wage Gap: Extent, Trends, and Explanations," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 55(3), pages 789-865, September.
    41. Luca Flabbi & James Mabli, 2018. "Household Search or Individual Search: Does It Matter?," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 36(1), pages 1-46.
    42. Azmat, Ghazala & Petrongolo, Barbara, 2014. "Gender and the labor market: What have we learned from field and lab experiments?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 32-40.
    43. Linda Babcock & Maria P. Recalde & Lise Vesterlund & Laurie Weingart, 2017. "Gender Differences in Accepting and Receiving Requests for Tasks with Low Promotability," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(3), pages 714-747, March.
    44. Le, Anh T. & Miller, Paul W. & Slutske, Wendy S. & Martin, Nicholas G., 2011. "Attitudes towards economic risk and the gender pay gap," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(4), pages 555-561, August.
    45. Heinz, Matthias & Normann, Hans-Theo & Rau, Holger A., 2016. "How competitiveness may cause a gender wage gap: Experimental evidence," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 336-349.
    46. Rachel Croson & Uri Gneezy, 2009. "Gender Differences in Preferences," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 448-474, June.
    47. Heinz, Matthias & Normann, Hans-Theo & Rau, Holger A., 2016. "How competitiveness may cause a gender wage gap: Experimental evidence," DICE Discussion Papers 213, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE).
    48. Katie Meara & Francesco Pastore & Allan Webster, 2020. "The gender pay gap in the USA: a matching study," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 33(1), pages 271-305, January.
    49. Cecilia Machado, 2017. "Unobserved selection heterogeneity and the gender wage gap," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(7), pages 1348-1366, November.
    50. Gerrit Mueller & Erik Plug, 2006. "Estimating the Effect of Personality on Male and Female Earnings," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 60(1), pages 3-22, October.
    51. Matthew Wiswall & Basit Zafar, 2018. "Preference for the Workplace, Investment in Human Capital, and Gender," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 133(1), pages 457-507.
    52. Claudia Goldin, 2014. "A Grand Gender Convergence: Its Last Chapter," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(4), pages 1091-1119, April.
    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. Christian Bredemeier & Patrick Ndlovu & Sunčica Vujić & Roland Winkler, 2025. "Household decisions and the gender gap in job satisfaction," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 72(1), February.
    2. Averkamp, Dorothée, 2024. "The Gender Wage Gap, Labor-Market Experience, and Family Choices: Lessons from East Germany?," VfS Annual Conference 2024 (Berlin): Upcoming Labor Market Challenges 302347, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.

    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. Petrongolo, Barbara & Ronchi, Maddalena, 2020. "Gender gaps and the structure of local labor markets," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    2. Saudi‐Yulieth Enciso‐Alfaro & Salma Marhroub & Pedro‐José Martínez‐Córdoba & Isabel‐María García‐Sánchez, 2024. "The effect of COVID‐19 on employment: A bibliometric review of a she‐cession," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 31(4), pages 3444-3467, July.
    3. Christian Bredemeier & Patrick Ndlovu & Sunčica Vujić & Roland Winkler, 2025. "Household decisions and the gender gap in job satisfaction," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 72(1), February.
    4. Clot, Sophie & Della Giusta, Marina & Razzu, Giovanni, 2020. "Gender Gaps in Competition: New Experimental Evidence from UK Professionals," IZA Discussion Papers 13323, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Nick Deschachtⓡ & Sunčica Vujićⓡ & Oscar Frison, 2025. "The Greedy Jobs Phenomenon as a Driving Force Behind the Gender Pay Gap: A Systematic Review," De Economist, Springer, vol. 173(1), pages 177-204, March.
    6. Josep Amer-Mestre and Agnès Charpin, 2022. "Gender Differences in Early Occupational Choices: Evidence from Medical Specialty Selection," Economics Working Papers EUI ECO 2022/01, European University Institute.
    7. Chen Liang & Yili Hong & Bin Gu & Jing Peng, 2018. "Gender Wage Gap in Online Gig Economy and Gender Differences in Job Preferences," Working Papers 18-03, NET Institute.
    8. Borghorst, Malte & Mulalic, Ismir & van Ommeren, Jos, 2024. "Commuting, gender and children," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    9. Sophie Clot & Marina Della Giusta & Giovanni Razzu, 2020. "Gender gaps in competition: new experimental evidence from UK," Economics Discussion Papers em-dp2020-15, Department of Economics, University of Reading.
    10. Olivetti, Claudia & Pan, Jessica & Petrongolo, Barbara, 2024. "The evolution of gender in the labor market," Handbook of Labor Economics,, Elsevier.
    11. Gomez-Herrera, Estrella & Mueller-Langer, Frank, 2024. "Does information disclosure affect the gender gap in bidding behavior? Empirical evidence from a natural experiment on a large online labor platform," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    12. Kiessling, Lukas & Pinger, Pia & Seegers, Philipp & Bergerhoff, Jan, 2024. "Gender differences in wage expectations and negotiation," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    13. Popov, Alexander, 2022. "The division of spoils in a booming industry," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 198(C), pages 341-369.
    14. Bredemeier, Christian, 2019. "Gender Gaps in Pay and Inter-Firm Mobility," IZA Discussion Papers 12785, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    15. Della Giusta, Marina & Clot, Sophie & Razzu, Giovanni, 2019. "The behavioural foundations of female entrepreneurship: what can experiments teach us?," MPRA Paper 91483, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Cortes, Patricia & Pan, Jessica, 2020. "Children and the Remaining Gender Gaps in the Labor Market," IZA Discussion Papers 13759, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    17. Marianne Bertrand, 2018. "Coase Lecture – The Glass Ceiling," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 85(338), pages 205-231, April.
    18. Claudia Olivetti & Barbara Petrongolo, 2016. "The Evolution of Gender Gaps in Industrialized Countries," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 8(1), pages 405-434, October.
    19. Anne‐Sophie Bruno & Nathalie Greenan & Jeremy Tanguy, 2021. "Does the Gender Mix Influence Collective Bargaining on Gender Equality? Evidence from France," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(4), pages 479-520, October.
    20. Benny, Liza & Bhalotra, Sonia & Fernández, Manuel, 2021. "Occupation flexibility and the graduate gender wage gap in the UK," ISER Working Paper Series 2021-05, Institute for Social and Economic Research.

    More about this item

    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:bla:scandj:v:126:y:2024:i:1:p:3-37. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1467-9442 .

    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.