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Pay transparency and gender equality

Author

Listed:
  • Duchini, Emma

    (University of Warwick)

  • Simion, Stefania

    (University of Bristol)

  • Turrell, Arthur

    (King’s College London)

Abstract

The 2018 UK transparency policy mandates that firms with at least 250 employees publicly disclose gender equality indicators. A difference-in-differences model exploiting variations in this policy across firm size and time shows that greater transparency closes 14 percent of the gender pay gap by reducing men’s wage growth. Additionally, the policy increases transparency in the hiring process, as firms are 10 percent more likely to post wages in their vacancies. Reputation concerns seem to influence employers’ reactions, as firms publishing worse equality indicators obtain lower impression scores in YouGov’s Women’s Rankings. Worse performing firms also improve gender equality the most.

Suggested Citation

  • Duchini, Emma & Simion, Stefania & Turrell, Arthur, 2020. "Pay transparency and gender equality," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 482, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
  • Handle: RePEc:cge:wacage:482
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    File URL: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/research/centres/cage/manage/publications/wp482.2020.pdf
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    Cited by:

    1. Gamage, Danula K. & Kavetsos, Georgios & Mallick, Sushanta & Sevilla, Almudena, 2020. "Pay Transparency Initiative and Gender Pay Gap: Evidence from Research-Intensive Universities in the UK," IZA Discussion Papers 13635, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Diego Gentile Passaro & Fuhito Kojima & Bobak Pakzad-Hurson, 2023. "Equal Pay for Similar Work," Papers 2306.17111, arXiv.org.
    3. Jones, Melanie K. & Kaya, Ezgi, 2022. "Organisational Gender Pay Gaps in the UK: What Happened Post-transparency?," IZA Discussion Papers 15342, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. John Forth & Nikolaos Theodoropoulos & Alex Bryson, 2023. "The role of the workplace in ethnic wage differentials," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 61(2), pages 259-290, June.
    5. Andreas Gulyas & Sebastian Seitz & Sourav Sinha, 2023. "Does Pay Transparency Affect the Gender Wage Gap? Evidence from Austria," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 15(2), pages 236-255, May.
    6. Danula K. Gamage & Georgios Kavetsos & Sushanta Mallick & Almudena Sevilla, 2024. "Pay transparency intervention and the gender pay gap: Evidence from research‐intensive universities in the UK," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 62(2), pages 293-318, June.
    7. Wolfgang Frimmel & Bernhard Schmidpeter & Rene Wiesinger & Rudolf Winter-Ebmer, 2022. "Mandatory Wage Posting, Bargaining and the Gender Wage Gap," Economics working papers 2022-02, Department of Economics, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria.
    8. Melanie Jones & Ezgi Kaya, 2023. "The UK gender pay gap: Does firm size matter?," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 90(359), pages 937-952, July.
    9. Adams-Prassl, Abi & Balgova, Maria & Qian, Matthias, 2020. "Flexible Work Arrangements in Low Wage Jobs: Evidence from Job Vacancy Data," IZA Discussion Papers 13691, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Van Phan & Carl Singleton & Alex Bryson & John Forth & Felix Ritchie & Lucy Stokes & Damian Whittard, 2023. "Accounting for firms in gender-ethnicity wage gaps throughout the earnings distribution," Economics Discussion Papers em-dp2023-16, Department of Economics, University of Reading.
    11. Adams-Prassl, Abigail & Balgova, Maria & Qian, Matthias, 2020. "Flexible Work Arrangements in Low Wage Jobs: Evidence from Job Vacancy Data," CEPR Discussion Papers 15263, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    12. Bamieh, Omar & Ziegler, Lennart, 2022. "Can Wage Transparency Alleviate Gender Sorting in the Labor Market?," IZA Discussion Papers 15363, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    pay transparency; gender equality; firm reputation. JEL Classification: J08; J16; J24.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J08 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General - - - Labor Economics Policies

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