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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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Article provided by Elsevier in its journal Labour Economics.

Volume (Year): 18 (2011)
Issue (Month): 1 (January)
Pages: 130-142

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Handle: RePEc:eee:labeco:v:18:y:2011:i:1:p:130-142
Contact details of provider: Web page: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/labeco

Keywords: Panel data Job mobility Gender gap Wage growth;

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

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Cited by:

  1. Prifti, Ervin & Vuri, Daniela, 2012. "Employment Protection and Fertility: Evidence from the 1990 Italian Reform," IZA Discussion Papers 6608, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
  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. Tiziano Razzolini & Roberto Leombruni & Giovanni Mastrobuoni & Mario Pagliero, 2012. "Beneath the Surface: the Decline in Gender Injury Gap," Carlo Alberto Notebooks 286, Collegio Carlo Alberto.
  4. 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.
  5. Giovanni Sulis, 2012. "Gender wage differentials in Italy: a structural estimation approach," Journal of Population Economics, Springer, vol. 25(1), pages 53-87, January.
  6. 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.

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