IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pav/demwpp/demwp0158.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Discriminate Me – if You Can! The Disappearance of the Gender Pay Gap among Public-Contest Selected Employees

Author

Listed:
  • Carolina Castegnetti

    () (Department of Economics and Management, University of Pavia)

  • Luisa Rosti

    () (Department of Economics and Management, University of Pavia)

  • Marina Töpfer

    () (Institute of Economics, University of Hohenheim)

Abstract

This paper analyzes the effect of public-contest recruitment on earnings for men and women using Italian microdata over a time period of ten years. We find that the gender pay gap vanishes, and even reverses among the young, when employees are selected through public contests. The results suggest that selection mechanisms such as public contests may offer a way for merit-based and gender-fair wage setting. However, since public contests and the public sector are highly correlated, we analyze the gender pay gap taking the interconnection between the public and private sector as well as the open contest issue into account. By decomposing our results by sector we find that public contests represent a necessary but not sufficient condition for merit-based and gender-fair recruitment. Similarly, the institutional environment of the public sector is a necessary but not sufficient condition for making public contests merit-based and gender-fair screening devices. These two factors taken together, cause the disappearance of the gender pay gap.

Suggested Citation

  • Carolina Castegnetti & Luisa Rosti & Marina Töpfer, 2018. "Discriminate Me – if You Can! The Disappearance of the Gender Pay Gap among Public-Contest Selected Employees," DEM Working Papers Series 158, University of Pavia, Department of Economics and Management.
    • Handle: RePEc:pav:demwpp:demwp0158
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://economia.unipv.it/docs/dipeco/quad/ps/RePEc/pav/demwpp/DEMWP0158.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Meng, Chun-Lo & Schmidt, Peter, 1985. "On the Cost of Partial Observability in the Bivariate Probit Model," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 26(1), pages 71-85, February.
    2. Chen, Le-Yu & Szroeter, Jerzy, 2014. "Testing multiple inequality hypotheses: A smoothed indicator approach," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 178(P3), pages 678-693.
    3. Dickson, Matt & Postel-Vinay, Fabien & Turon, Hélène, 2014. "The lifetime earnings premium in the public sector: The view from Europe," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 141-161.
    4. Lawrence M. Kahn, 2014. "New Evidence on Gender and the Labor Market: A Symposium," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 67(2), pages 283-286, April.
    5. Bertrand, Marianne, 2011. "New Perspectives on Gender," Handbook of Labor Economics, Elsevier.
    6. Chzhen, Yekaterina & Mumford, Karen, 2011. "Gender gaps across the earnings distribution for full-time employees in Britain: Allowing for sample selection," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(6), pages 837-844.
    7. Martin Huber & Giovanni Mellace, 2014. "Testing exclusion restrictions and additive separability in sample selection models," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 47(1), pages 75-92, August.
    8. Cappellari, Lorenzo, 2002. "Earnings dynamics and uncertainty in Italy: how do they differ between the private and public sectors?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(4), pages 477-496, September.
    9. Oecd, 2015. "What Lies Behind Gender Inequality in Education?," PISA in Focus 49, OECD Publishing.
    10. Castagnetti, Carolina & Rosti, Luisa, 2010. "Gender stereotyping and wage discrimination among Italian graduates," MPRA Paper 26685, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Piazzalunga, Daniela, 2013. "Is there a Double-Negative Effect? Gender and Ethnic Wage Differentials," Department of Economics and Statistics Cognetti de Martiis. Working Papers 201337, University of Turin.
    12. Castagnetti, Carolina & Rosti, Luisa, 2009. "Effort allocation in tournaments: The effect of gender on academic performance in Italian universities," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 357-369, June.
    13. 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.
    14. Francine D. Blau & Lawrence M. Kahn, 2017. "The Gender Wage Gap: Extent, Trends, and Explanations," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 55(3), pages 789-865, September.
    15. Lee, Lung-Fei, 1983. "Generalized Econometric Models with Selectivity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 51(2), pages 507-512, March.
    16. Heckman, James, 2013. "Sample selection bias as a specification error," Applied Econometrics, Publishing House "SINERGIA PRESS", vol. 31(3), pages 129-137.
    17. Oaxaca, Ronald, 1973. "Male-Female Wage Differentials in Urban Labor Markets," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 14(3), pages 693-709, October.
    18. 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 751-776, July.
    19. 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.
    20. David Blackaby & Alison L Booth & Jeff Frank, 2005. "Outside Offers And The Gender Pay Gap: Empirical Evidence From the UK Academic Labour Market," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 115(501), pages 81-107, February.
    21. Lee, Lung-Fei, 1979. "Identification and Estimation in Binary Choice Models with Limited (Censored) Dependent Variables," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 47(4), pages 977-996, July.
    22. Claudia Goldin, 2014. "A Grand Gender Convergence: Its Last Chapter," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(4), pages 1091-1119, April.
    23. Michael Bar & Seik Kim & Oksana Leukhina, 2015. "Gender Wage Gap Accounting: The Role of Selection Bias," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 52(5), pages 1729-1750, October.
    24. David Blackaby & Alison L Booth & Jeff Frank, 2005. "Outside Offers And The Gender Pay Gap: Empirical Evidence From the UK Academic Labour Market," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 115(501), pages 81-107, February.
    25. Muriel Niederle & Lise Vesterlund, 2007. "Do Women Shy Away From Competition? Do Men Compete Too Much?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 122(3), pages 1067-1101.
    26. Paul J. Devereux, 2004. "Changes in Relative Wages and Family Labor Supply," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 39(3).
    27. Nicole M. Fortin, 2008. "The Gender Wage Gap among Young Adults in the United States: The Importance of Money versus People," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 43(4).
    28. Carolina Castagnetti & Luisa Rosti, 2012. "Unfair tournaments: gender stereotyping and wage discrimination among Italian graduates," DEM Working Papers Series 010, University of Pavia, Department of Economics and Management.
    29. Lawrence M. Kahn, 2015. "Wage compression and the gender pay gap," IZA World of Labor, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), pages 150-150, April.
    30. 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.
    31. Sheng‐Kai Chang, 2011. "Simulation estimation of two‐tiered dynamic panel Tobit models with an application to the labor supply of married women," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(5), pages 854-871, August.
    32. Elaine Sorensen, 1989. "Measuring the Pay Disparity between Typically Female Occupations and other Jobs: A Bivariate Selectivity Approach," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 42(4), pages 624-639, July.
    33. repec:iza:izawol:journl:y:2015:p:150 is not listed on IDEAS
    34. Casey B. Mulligan & Yona Rubinstein, 2008. "Selection, Investment, and Women's Relative Wages Over Time," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 123(3), pages 1061-1110.
    35. Heinze, Anja & Beninger, Denis & Beblo, Miriam & Laisney, François, 2003. "Measuring Selectivity-Corrected Gender Wage Gaps in the EU," ZEW Discussion Papers 03-74, ZEW - Zentrum für Europäische Wirtschaftsforschung / Center for European Economic Research.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Gender Pay Gap; Public-Contest Recruitment; Double Sample Selection.;

    JEL classification:

    • J7 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination
    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials

    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:pav:demwpp:demwp0158. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Alice Albonico). General contact details of provider: http://edirc.repec.org/data/dppavit.html .

    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 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.

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.