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Job mobility and the gender wage gap in Italy

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  • Del Bono, Emilia
  • Vuri, Daniela

Abstract

This paper investigates the contribution of gender differences in job mobility to the emergence of a gender wage gap in the Italian labour market. We show that over the first 10 years of labour market experience job mobility accounts for up to 30% of total log wage growth for men and only 8.3% for women, and that this difference is mainly due to differences in returns to mobility. The gender mobility gap is robust to the inclusion of individual, job and firm characteristics, to different ways of accounting for individual unobserved heterogeneity, and is mainly found for voluntary job moves. Looking at the characteristics of the jobs and the firms' workers move to, we find that moves to larger firms represent by far the main source of gender differences in returns to mobility. We offer two possible explanations for this finding; one which involves differences in bargaining behaviour and one which relates to the theory of compensating differentials.

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  • Del Bono, Emilia & Vuri, Daniela, 2011. "Job mobility and the gender wage gap in Italy," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 130-142, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:labeco:v:18:y:2011:i:1:p:130-142
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    Cited by:

    1. Daniela Piazzalunga & Maria Laura Di Tommaso, 2019. "The increase of the gender wage gap in Italy during the 2008-2012 economic crisis," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 17(2), pages 171-193, June.
    2. Stefano Gagliarducci & M. Daniele Paserman, 2012. "Gender Interactions within Hierarchies: Evidence from the Political Arena," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 79(3), pages 1021-1052.
    3. Ervin Prifti & Daniela Vuri, 2012. "Employment Protection and Fertility: Evidence from the 1990 Italian Reform," CESifo Working Paper Series 3805, CESifo Group Munich.
    4. Iga Magda & Ewa Cukrowska-Torzewska, 2019. "Gender wage gap in the workplace: Does the age of the firm matter?," IBS Working Papers 01/2019, Instytut Badan Strukturalnych.
    5. Berge, Wiljan van den, 2018. "Bad start, bad match? The early career effects of graduating in a recession for vocational and academic graduates," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 75-96.
    6. Stefano Filomeni & Gregory F. Udell & Alberto Zazzaro, 2016. "Hardening Soft Information: How Far Has Technology Taken Us?," CSEF Working Papers 455, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy.
    7. Giovanni Sulis, 2012. "Gender wage differentials in Italy: a structural estimation approach," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 25(1), pages 53-87, January.
    8. Pastore, Francesco & Sattar, Sarosh & Sinha, Nistha & Tiongson, Erwin R., 2016. "When Do Gender Wage Differences Emerge? A Study of Azerbaijan's Labor Market," IZA Discussion Papers 9660, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. Pieroni, Luca & Salmasi, Luca, 2012. "Smoking habit changes and body weight: causal estimates from the British Household Panel Survey," MPRA Paper 43465, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Atsue Mizushima & Koichi Futagami, 2015. "Non-cooperative versus cooperative family," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 114(1), pages 43-62, January.
    11. Cerulli-Harms, Annette, 2017. "Generation Internship: The Impact of Internships on Early Labour Market Performance," IZA Discussion Papers 11163, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    12. Fortin, Nicole M. & Bell, Brian & Böhm, Michael, 2017. "Top earnings inequality and the gender pay gap: Canada, Sweden, and the United Kingdom," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 107-123.
    13. Prifti, Ervin & Vuri, Daniela, 2013. "Employment protection and fertility: Evidence from the 1990 Italian reform," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(C), pages 77-88.
    14. Giulia Mancini, 2018. "Women's Labor Force Participation in Italy, 1861-2011," Rivista di storia economica, Società editrice il Mulino, issue 1, pages 3-68.
    15. Wiljan van den Berge & Arne Brouwers, 2017. "A lost generation? The early career effects of graduating during a recession," CPB Discussion Paper 356, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    16. Razzolini, Tiziano & Leombruni, Roberto & Mastrobuoni, Giovanni & Pagliero, Mario, 2014. "Beneath the surface: The decline in gender injury gap," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 282-288.
    17. Maier, Michael & Argaw, Bethlehem A. & Maier, Michael F. & Skriabikova, Olga J., 2016. "Risk attitudes, job mobility and subsequent wage growth during the early career," Annual Conference 2016 (Augsburg): Demographic Change 145677, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    18. Johannes Wieschke, 2018. "Frequency of employer changes and their financial return: gender differences amongst German university graduates," Journal for Labour Market Research, Springer;Institute for Employment Research/ Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), vol. 52(1), pages 1-13, December.
    19. Roberto Leombruni & Michele Mosca, 2011. "The lifetime gender gap in Italy. Do the pension system countervails labour market outcomes?," LABORatorio R. Revelli Working Papers Series 113, LABORatorio R. Revelli, Centre for Employment Studies.
    20. Barth, Erling & Pekkala Kerr, Sari & Olivetti, Claudia, 2017. "The Dynamics of Gender Earnings Differentials: Evidence from Establishment Data," IZA Discussion Papers 10974, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    21. Wiljan van den Berge & Arne Brouwers, 2017. "A lost generation? The early career effects of graduating during a recession," CPB Discussion Paper 356.rdf, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    22. Argaw, Bethlehem A. & Maier, Michael F. & Skriabikova, Olga J., 2017. "Risk attitudes, job mobility and subsequent wage growth during the early career," ZEW Discussion Papers 17-023, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    23. Amina Ebrahim & Kezia Lilenstein, 2019. "Gender and the South African labour market: Policy relevant research possibilities using South African tax data," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2019-31, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    24. Casarico, A. & Lattanzio, S., 2019. "What Firms Do: Gender Inequality in Linked Employer-Employee Data," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 1966, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    25. Pieroni, Luca & Salmasi, Luca, 2016. "The effect of smoking habit changes on body weight: Evidence from the UK," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 20(C), pages 1-13.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Panel data Job mobility Gender gap Wage growth;

    JEL classification:

    • C23 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Models with Panel Data; Spatio-temporal Models
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J28 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Safety; Job Satisfaction; Related Public Policy
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • J62 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Job, Occupational and Intergenerational Mobility; Promotion

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