IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spt/admaec/v16y2026i2f16_2_1.html

The Effects of Distributional Assumptions on the Full-time and Part-time Wage Differentials

Author

Listed:
  • John Baffoe-Bonnie

Abstract

The extent to which the distribution of the disturbance term in the estimated wage equation affects the wage differential between full-time and part-time workers is examined in this paper. Adopting a switching regression model with known sample selection, I found that the normality assumption generates larger wage estimates than the estimates of the non-normal distributions. The results indicate that the Normal distribution produces the larger wage differentials than the Non-normal distributions. Also, regardless of distributional assumption, differences in full-time and part-time characteristics account for a larger portion of the full-time and part-time wage differentials. The empirical message derived from this study is that, studies that rely solely on the normality assumption may not provide a true picture of the size of the estimated wage gap between full-time and part-time workers. In general, the study seems to suggest that the estimated wage differential between groups such as male-female and white-black under the normality assumption may be overstated. JEL classification numbers: J31, J22, J23, J20.

Suggested Citation

  • John Baffoe-Bonnie, 2026. "The Effects of Distributional Assumptions on the Full-time and Part-time Wage Differentials," Advances in Management and Applied Economics, SCIENPRESS Ltd, vol. 16(2), pages 1-1.
    • Handle: RePEc:spt:admaec:v:16:y:2026:i:2:f:16_2_1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.scienpress.com/Upload/AMAE%2fVol%2016_2_1.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. F. L. Jones, 1983. "On Decomposing the Wage Gap: A Critical Comment on Blinder's Method," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 18(1), pages 126-130.
    2. Raúl Ramos & Esteban Sanromá & Hipólito Simón, 2015. "An analysis of wage differentials between full-and part-time workers in Spain," Working Papers 2015/29, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
    3. John Baffoe-Bonnie, 2004. "Interindustry part-time and full-time wage differentials: regional and national analysis," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(2), pages 107-118.
    4. repec:spo:wpecon:info:hdl:2441/9081 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Alan S. Blinder, 1976. "On Dogmatism in Human Capital Theory," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 11(1), pages 8-22.
    6. Alan Manning & Barbara Petrongolo, 2008. "The Part‐Time Pay Penalty for Women in Britain," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(526), pages 28-51, February.
    7. Bera, Anil K & Jarque, Carlos M & Lee, Lung-Fei, 1984. "Testing the Normality Assumption in Limited Dependent Variable Models," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 25(3), pages 563-578, October.
    8. Jye Lu & Gouri Bhattacharyya, 1990. "Some new constructions of bivariate Weibull models," Annals of the Institute of Statistical Mathematics, Springer;The Institute of Statistical Mathematics, vol. 42(3), pages 543-559, September.
    9. Alan S. Blinder, 1973. "Wage Discrimination: Reduced Form and Structural Estimates," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 8(4), pages 436-455.
    10. Hotchkiss, Julie L, 1991. "The Definition of Part-Time Employment: A Switching Regression Model with Unknown Sample Selection," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 32(4), pages 899-917, November.
    11. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/9081 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Olsen, Randall J, 1982. "Distributional Tests for Selectivity Bias and a More Robust Likelihood Estimator," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 23(1), pages 223-240, February.
    13. Joan R. Rodgers, 2004. "Hourly Wages of full-time and part-time employees in Australia," Australian Journal of Labour Economics (AJLE), Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre (BCEC), Curtin Business School, vol. 7(2), pages 231-254, June.
    14. John F. Ermisch & Robert E. Wright, 1993. "Wage Offers and Full-Time and Part-Time Employment by British Women," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 28(1), pages 111-133.
    15. Pesaran, M H & Smith, R P & Yeo, J S, 1985. "Testing for Structural Stability and Predictive Failure: A Review," The Manchester School of Economic & Social Studies, University of Manchester, vol. 53(3), pages 280-295, September.
    16. 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.
    17. David Neumark, 1988. "Employers' Discriminatory Behavior and the Estimation of Wage Discrimination," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 23(3), pages 279-295.
    18. Walter Y. Oi, 1962. "Labor as a Quasi-Fixed Factor," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 70(6), pages 538-538.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Ben Jann, 2008. "A Stata implementation of the Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition," ETH Zurich Sociology Working Papers 5, ETH Zurich, Chair of Sociology, revised 14 May 2008.
    2. Sonja C. Kassenboehmer & Mathias G. Sinning, 2014. "Distributional Changes in the Gender Wage Gap," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 67(2), pages 335-361, April.
    3. Annemarie Künn-Nelen & Andries de Grip & Didier Fouarge, 2013. "Is Part-Time Employment Beneficial for Firm Productivity?," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 66(5), pages 1172-1191, October.
    4. Dougherty, Christopher, 2003. "Why is the rate of return to schooling higher for women than for men?," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 20034, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    5. Eleonora Matteazzi & Ariane Pailhé & Anne Solaz, 2013. "Does Part-Time Employment Widen the Gender Wage Gap? Evidence from Twelve European Countries," Working Papers 293, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    6. Babacar Sarr, 2016. "What Are the Drivers of Fiscal Performance Gaps between Anglophone and Francophone Africa? A Blinder–Oaxaca Decomposition," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 84(1), pages 40-62, March.
    7. Eleonora Matteazzi & Ariane Pailhé & Anne Solaz, 2014. "Part-Time Wage Penalties for Women in Prime Age," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 67(3), pages 955-985, July.
    8. Ramos, Raul & Sanromá, Esteban & Simón, Hipólito, 2015. "An Analysis of Wage Differentials between Full- and Part-Time Workers in Spain," IZA Discussion Papers 9257, IZA Network @ LISER.
    9. Meghaan R. Lurtz & Derek T. Tharp & Katherine S. Mielitz & Michael Kitces & D. Allen Ammerman, 2020. "Decomposing the Gender Divorce Gap Among Personal Financial Planners," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 41(1), pages 19-36, March.
    10. Christopher Dougherty, 2005. "Why Are the Returns to Schooling Higher for Women than for Men?," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 40(4), pages 969-988.
    11. Raul Ramos & Esteban Sanromá & Hipólito Simón, 2016. "The part-time wage penalty: Does bargaining coverage outweigh regional differences in Spain?," The Economic and Labour Relations Review, , vol. 27(3), pages 368-386, September.
    12. Baffoe-Bonnie, John & Ezeala-Harrison, Fidelis, 2005. "Incidence and duration of unemployment spells: Implications for the male-female wage differentials," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 45(4-5), pages 824-847, September.
    13. Yue Ma & Ying Chu Ng, 2008. "Bootstrapping statistical inferences of decomposition methods for gender earnings differentials," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(12), pages 1583-1593.
    14. Jacob, Brian A., 2002. "Where the boys aren't: non-cognitive skills, returns to school and the gender gap in higher education," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 21(6), pages 589-598, December.
    15. Constantin G. Ogloblin, 1999. "The Gender Earnings Differential in the Russian Transition Economy," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 52(4), pages 602-627, July.
    16. Adam Pilny, 2017. "Explaining Differentials in Subsidy Levels Among Hospital Ownership Types in Germany," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(5), pages 566-581, May.
    17. Zhang, Li & Sharpe, Rhonda Vonshay & Li, Shi & Darity, William A., 2016. "Wage differentials between urban and rural-urban migrant workers in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 222-233.
    18. Síle O'Dorchai & Robert Plasman & François Rycx, 2007. "The part‐time wage penalty in European countries: how large is it for men?," International Journal of Manpower, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 28(7), pages 571-603, October.
    19. Fernández-Kranz, Daniel & Rodríguez-Planas, Núria, 2011. "The part-time pay penalty in a segmented labor market," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(5), pages 591-606, October.
    20. Colella, Fabrizio, 2014. "Women's Part-Time - Full-Time Wage Differentials in Europe: an Endogenous Switching Model," MPRA Paper 55287, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply
    • J23 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Demand
    • J20 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - General

    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:spt:admaec:v:16:y:2026:i:2:f:16_2_1. 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: Eleftherios Spyromitros-Xioufis (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.scienpress.com/ .

    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.