IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/diw/diwwpp/dp905.html

Glass Ceiling Effect and Earnings: The Gender Pay Gap in Managerial Positions in Germany

Author

Listed:
  • Anne Busch
  • Elke Holst

Abstract

Although there are a variety of studies on the gender pay gap, only a few relate to managerial positions. The present study attempts to fill this gap. Managers in private companies in Germany are a highly selective group of women and men, who differ only marginally in their human capital endowments. The Oaxaca/Blinder decomposition shows that the gender pay gap in the gross monthly salary can hardly be explained using the human capital approach. Adding variables on gender-specific labor market segregation and dimensions of the household and family to the model allows more than two-thirds of the gender pay gap to be explained. However, taking selection effects in a managerial position into account (Heckman correction), the proportion explained decreases to only one-third. This reveals the real extent to which women are disadvantaged on the labor market. In addition, we observe not only that the wages in typical women's jobs are lower than in typical men's jobs but also that women are paid less than men in typical women's jobs. The two-thirds of the gender pay gap that remain unexplained represent the unobserved heterogeneity. This includes, for example, general societal and cultural conditions as well as structures and practices on the labor market and in companies that subject women to pay discrimination and pose an obstacle to them breaking the glass ceiling.

Suggested Citation

  • Anne Busch & Elke Holst, 2009. "Glass Ceiling Effect and Earnings: The Gender Pay Gap in Managerial Positions in Germany," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 905, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:diw:diwwpp:dp905
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.diw.de/documents/publikationen/73/diw_01.c.99981.de/dp905.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Simon Fietze & Elke Holst & Verena Tobsch, 2011. "Germany’s Next Top Manager: Does Personality Explain the Gender Career Gap?," management revue. Socio-economic Studies, Rainer Hampp Verlag, vol. 22(3), pages 240-273.
    2. Nina Smith & Valdemar Smith & Mette Verne, 2011. "The gender pay gap in top corporate jobs in Denmark," International Journal of Manpower, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 32(2), pages 156-177, May.
    3. Joanna Tyrowicz & Lucas van der Velde & Irene van Staveren, 2018. "Does Age Exacerbate the Gender-Wage Gap? New Method and Evidence From Germany, 1984–2014," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(4), pages 108-130, October.
    4. Eileen Trzcinski & Elke Holst, 2012. "Gender Differences in Subjective Well-Being In and Out of Management Positions," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 107(3), pages 449-463, July.
    5. Magdalena Smyk & Joanna Tyrowicz & Barbara Liberda, 2014. "Age-productivity patterns in talent occupations for men and women: a decomposition," Post-Communist Economies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 26(3), pages 401-414, September.
    6. Trzcinski, Eileen & Holst, Elke, 2011. "A Critique and Reframing of Personality in Labour Market Theory: Locus of Control and Labour Market Outcomes," IZA Discussion Papers 6090, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. Eileen Trzcinski & Elke Holst, 2010. "Interrelationships among Locus of Control and Years in Management and Unemployment: Differences by Gender," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 974, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    8. Marko Vladisavljević, 2017. "The Public Sector Wage Premium And Fiscal Consolidation In Serbia," Economic Annals, Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Belgrade, vol. 62(215), pages 111-134, October –.
    9. Joanna Tyrowicz & Lucas van der Velde & Irene van Staveren, 2015. "Differences in the Estimates of Gender Wage Gap Over The Life Cycle," Working Papers 2015-29, Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw.
    10. Anne Busch & Elke Holst, 2011. "Gender-Specific Occupational Segregation, Glass Ceiling Effects, and Earnings in Managerial Positions: Results of a Fixed Effects Model," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 357, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    11. Marco Biagetti & Sergio Scicchitano, 2016. "Are women in supervisory positions more discriminated against? A multinomial approach," Working Papers 2, Department of the Treasury, Ministry of the Economy and of Finance.
    12. Anna Ruzik & Magdalena Rokicka, 2010. "The Gender Pay Gap in Informal Employment in Poland," CASE Network Studies and Analyses 406, CASE-Center for Social and Economic Research.
    13. Susi Störmer, 2011. "Führt Attraktivität zum Erfolg? Zum Einfluss des Body-Maß-Index auf den Karriereerfolg," Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research, Springer, vol. 63(6), pages 609-631, September.
    14. Aline Zucco, 2019. "Occupational Characteristics and the Gender Pay Gap," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1794, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    15. Bozzano, Monica, 2017. "On the historical roots of women's empowerment across Italian provinces: religion or family culture?," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 24-46.
    16. Sina Otten, 2020. "Gender-Specific Personality Traits and Their Effects on the Gender Wage Gap: A Correlated Random Effects Approach using SOEP Data," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 1078, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    17. Collischon Matthias, 2019. "Is There a Glass Ceiling over Germany?," German Economic Review, De Gruyter, vol. 20(4), pages 329-359, December.
    18. Ian Watson, 2010. "Decomposing the Gender Pay Gap in the Australian Managerial Labour Market," Australian Journal of Labour Economics (AJLE), Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre (BCEC), Curtin Business School, vol. 13(1), pages 49-79.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:diw:diwwpp:dp905. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Bibliothek (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/diwbede.html .

    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.