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Gender Wage Differentials in the Finnish Labour Market

Author

Listed:
  • Juhana Vartiainen

Abstract

A comprehensive analysis of the gender wage differential among Finnish full time employees is reported. Oaxaca decompositions show that the the overall wage gap of about 21.5 per cent cannot be accounted for by individual characteristics, since age and educational qualifications are rather similar for men and women. When industry and occupational qualifications are included in the regressor matrix, the unexplained part shrinks to about 50 per cent of the gross differential. An even larger part of the gross differential can be explained in sector-specific analyses with a dense set of occupational dummies. In a less standard part of the analysis, we characterise the distribution of the unexplained wage gap across the variable space. It turns out the women with a high wage predictor, that is, women with good educational qualifications in well-remunerated occupations, drag the most behind their male colleagues endowed with similar characteristics.

Suggested Citation

  • Juhana Vartiainen, 2002. "Gender Wage Differentials in the Finnish Labour Market," Working Papers 179, Työn ja talouden tutkimus LABORE, Labour Institute for Economic Research LABORE.
    • Handle: RePEc:pst:wpaper:179
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. Jenkins, Stephen P., 1994. "Earnings discrimination measurement : A distributional approach," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 61(1), pages 81-102, March.
    3. 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.
    4. Ronald L. Oaxaca & Michael R. Ransom, 1999. "Identification in Detailed Wage Decompositions," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 81(1), pages 154-157, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • J70 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination - - - General
    • J71 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination - - - Hiring and Firing

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