IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehu/dfaeii/6722.html

Ceilings and Floors? Gender Wage Gaps by Education in Spain

Author

Listed:
  • De la Rica Goiricelaya, Sara
  • Dolado, Juan J.
  • Llorens, Vanessa

Abstract

This paper analyses the gender wage gaps by education throughout the wage distribution in Spain using individual data from the ECHP (1999). Quantile regressions are used to estimate the wage returns to the different characteristics at the more relevant percentiles and a suitable version of the Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition is then implemented to estimate the component of the gender gap not explained by different characteristics. Our main findings are twofold. First, in contrast with the steep pattern found for other countries, the flatter evolution of the gap found in Spain hides a composition effect when the sample is split by education. On the one hand, for the group with college/tertiary education, we find a higher unexplained gap at the top than at the bottom of the distribution, in accordance with the conventional glass ceiling hypothesis. On the other, for the group with lower education, the gap is much higher at the bottom than at the top of the distribution. We label this novel pattern as glass floors and argue that it is due to statistical discrimination exerted by employers in view of the low participation rate of women in this group. Such a hypothesis is confirmed when using the panel structure of the ECHP.

Suggested Citation

  • De la Rica Goiricelaya, Sara & Dolado, Juan J. & Llorens, Vanessa, 2005. "Ceilings and Floors? Gender Wage Gaps by Education in Spain," DFAEII Working Papers 1988-088X, University of the Basque Country - Department of Foundations of Economic Analysis II.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehu:dfaeii:6722
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://addi.ehu.eus/handle/10810/6722
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Uri Gneezy & Muriel Niederle & Aldo Rustichini, 2003. "Performance in Competitive Environments: Gender Differences," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(3), pages 1049-1074.
    2. Lazear, Edward P & Rosen, Sherwin, 1990. "Male-Female Wage Differentials in Job Ladders," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 8(1), pages 106-123, January.
    3. Jacob Mincer & Solomon Polachek, 1974. "Family Investments in Human Capital: Earnings of Women," NBER Chapters, in: Marriage, Family, Human Capital, and Fertility, pages 76-110, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Sims,Christopher A. (ed.), 1994. "Advances in Econometrics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521444606, January.
    5. Buchinsky, Moshe, 1994. "Changes in the U.S. Wage Structure 1963-1987: Application of Quantile Regression," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 62(2), pages 405-458, March.
    6. Koenker, Roger & Bassett, Gilbert, Jr, 1982. "Robust Tests for Heteroscedasticity Based on Regression Quantiles," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(1), pages 43-61, January.
    7. Moshe Buchinsky, 1998. "Recent Advances in Quantile Regression Models: A Practical Guideline for Empirical Research," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 33(1), pages 88-126.
    8. James Albrecht & Aico van Vuuren & Susan Vroman, 2004. "Decomposing the Gender Wage Gap in the Netherlands with Sample Selection Adjustments," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 04-123/3, Tinbergen Institute.
    9. Dolado, Juan J & Llorens, Vanesa, 2004. "Gender Wage Gaps by Education in Spain: Glass Floors versus Glass Ceilings," CEPR Discussion Papers 4203, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    10. Francine D. Blau & Lawrence M. Kahn, 2000. "Gender Differences in Pay," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 14(4), pages 75-99, Fall.
    11. Henry S. Farber & Robert Gibbons, 1996. "Learning and Wage Dynamics," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 111(4), pages 1007-1047.
    12. Newell, Andrew & Reilly, Barry, 2001. "The gender pay gap in the transition from communism: some empirical evidence," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 25(4), pages 287-304, December.
    13. James Albrecht & Anders Bjorklund & Susan Vroman, 2003. "Is There a Glass Ceiling in Sweden?," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 21(1), pages 145-177, January.
    14. Olympia Bover & Manuel Arellano, 1995. "Female labour force participation in the 1980s: the case of Spain," Investigaciones Economicas, Fundación SEPI, vol. 19(2), pages 171-194, May.
    15. Sims,Christopher A. (ed.), 1994. "Advances in Econometrics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521444590, January.
    16. Juan J. Dolado & Vanesa Llorens, 2004. "Gender Wage Gaps By Education In Spain: Glass Floors Vs. Glass Ceilings," Working Papers wp2004_03, CEMFI.
    17. Daron Acemoglu & Jörn-Steffen Pischke, 1998. "Why Do Firms Train? Theory and Evidence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 113(1), pages 79-119.
    18. Alberto Abadie, 1997. "Changes in Spanish labor income structure during the 1980's: a quantile regression aproach," Investigaciones Economicas, Fundación SEPI, vol. 21(2), pages 253-272, May.
    19. Juan J. Dolado & Vanesa Llorens, 2004. "Gender Wage Gaps by Education in Spain: Glass Floors Vs. Glass Ceilings," Working Papers wp2004_0403, CEMFI.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Claudia Olivetti & Barbara Petrongolo, 2008. "Unequal Pay or Unequal Employment? A Cross-Country Analysis of Gender Gaps," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 26(4), pages 621-654, October.
    2. Mohamed Jellal & Christophe Nordman & Francois-Charles Wolff, 2008. "Evidence on the glass ceiling effect in France using matched worker-firm data," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(24), pages 3233-3250.
    3. Marie Ligocká, 2022. "The Gender Wage Gap in EU Countries and its Relation to the Educational Attainment and Type of Employment," ACTA VSFS, University of Finance and Administration, vol. 16(1), pages 23-42.
    4. Catia Nicodemo, 2009. "Heterogeneity across Immigrants in the Spanish Labour Market: Advantage and Disadvantage," Working Papers wpdea0909, Department of Applied Economics at Universitat Autonoma of Barcelona.
    5. Antonio Di Paolo & Joan Gil Trasfi & Athina Raftopoulou, 2018. "“What drives regional differences in BMI? Evidence from Spain”," IREA Working Papers 201808, University of Barcelona, Research Institute of Applied Economics, revised Oct 2018.
    6. Nicodemo, Catia, 2009. "Gender Pay Gap and Quantile Regression in European Families," IZA Discussion Papers 3978, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. Evangelia Papapetrou, 2006. "The Public-Private Sector Pay Differential in Greece," Public Finance Review, , vol. 34(4), pages 450-473, July.
    8. Yolanda Pena‐Boquete, 2009. "A comparative analysis of the evolution of gender wage discrimination: Spain vs. Galicia," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 88(1), pages 161-180, March.

    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. de la Rica, Sara & Dolado, Juan J. & Llorens, Vanesa, 2005. "Ceiling and Floors: Gender Wage Gaps by Education in Spain," IZA Discussion Papers 1483, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Dolado, Juan J & Llorens, Vanesa, 2004. "Gender Wage Gaps by Education in Spain: Glass Floors versus Glass Ceilings," CEPR Discussion Papers 4203, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. Juan J. Dolado & Vanesa Llorens, 2004. "Gender Wage Gaps by Education in Spain: Glass Floors Vs. Glass Ceilings," Working Papers wp2004_0403, CEMFI.
    4. Juan J. Dolado & Vanesa Llorens, 2004. "Gender Wage Gaps By Education In Spain: Glass Floors Vs. Glass Ceilings," Working Papers wp2004_03, CEMFI.
    5. Sara Rica & Juan Dolado & Vanesa Llorens, 2008. "Ceilings or floors? Gender wage gaps by education in Spain," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 21(3), pages 777-778, July.
    6. Gabrielle Wanzenried, 2008. "How feminine is corporate America? A recent overview," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 6(2), pages 185-209, June.
    7. Wiji Arulampalam & Alison L. Booth & Mark L. Bryan, 2007. "Is There a Glass Ceiling over Europe? Exploring the Gender Pay Gap across the Wage Distribution," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 60(2), pages 163-186, January.
    8. Coral del Río Otero & Carlos Gradín Lago & Olga Cantó Sánchez, 2004. "El enfoque distributivo en el análisis de la discriminación salarial por razón de género," Working Papers 0405, Universidade de Vigo, Departamento de Economía Aplicada.
    9. Daniel Pollmann & Thomas Dohmen & Franz Palm, 2020. "Dispersion estimation; Earnings risk; Censoring; Quantile regression; Occupational choice; Sorting; Risk preferences; SOEP; IABS," ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series 028, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.
    10. Qingjie Xia & Lina Song & Shi Li & Simon Appleton, 2014. "The effect of the state sector on wage inequality in urban China: 1988--2007," Journal of Chinese Economic and Business Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(1), pages 29-45, February.
    11. James Albrecht & Aico van Vuuren & Susan Vroman, 2004. "Decomposing the Gender Wage Gap in the Netherlands with Sample Selection Adjustments," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 04-123/3, Tinbergen Institute.
    12. Marisa Bucheli & Graciela Sanroman, 2004. "Salarios Femeninos en el Uruguay ¿Existe un Techo de Cristal?," Documentos de Trabajo (working papers) 0504, Department of Economics - dECON.
    13. Cristiano Perugini & Ekaterina Selezneva, 2015. "Labour market institutions, crisis and gender earnings gap in Eastern Europe," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 23(3), pages 517-564, July.
    14. Victor Chernozhukov, 2005. "Extremal quantile regression," Papers math/0505639, arXiv.org.
    15. Albrecht, James & van Vuuren, Aico & Vroman, Susan, 2009. "Counterfactual distributions with sample selection adjustments: Econometric theory and an application to the Netherlands," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(4), pages 383-396, August.
    16. Coral Río & Carlos Gradín & Olga Cantó, 2011. "The measurement of gender wage discrimination: the distributional approach revisited," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 9(1), pages 57-86, March.
    17. Victor Chernozhukov & Iván Fernández‐Val & Blaise Melly, 2013. "Inference on Counterfactual Distributions," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 81(6), pages 2205-2268, November.
    18. T. Paul Schultz & Germano Mwabu, 1998. "Labor Unions and the Distribution of Wages and Employment in South Africa," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 51(4), pages 680-703, July.
    19. Claudia Goldin, 2014. "A Grand Gender Convergence: Its Last Chapter," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(4), pages 1091-1119, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;

    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:ehu:dfaeii:6722. 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: Alcira Macías Redondo (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/f1ehues.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.