Education and wage differentials by gender in Italy

The most recent literature on wage differentials highlights the need to evaluate the wage gap at different points of the wage distribution rather than at the average value alone. In this work we use quantile regressions and an adaptation of the procedure suggested by Machado and Mata (2005) to derive the predicted and counterfactual female wage distributions and to evaluate the extension of the unexplained part of the wage gap. We use data from the last available cross-section of the European Community Household Panel (2001). We show that in Italy the wage gap due to gender differences in the rewards to productive characteristics is higher in correspondence with the extremes of the female wage distribution, suggesting the presence of strong glass ceiling and sticky floor patterns. Controlling for different educational levels, we find that low-educated women suffer a higher unexplained wage gap along the whole distribution. However, we detect a strong sticky floor effect among low-educated women and some evidence of a glass ceiling pattern among highly-educated female workers.