IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/yor/yorken/09-28.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Gender Pay Gap for Private Sector Employees in Canada and Britain

Author

Listed:
  • Marie Drolet
  • Karen Mumford

Abstract

This paper uses British and Canadian linked employer-employee data to investigate the importance of the workplace for the gender wage gap. Implementing a novel decomposition approach, we find substantial unexplained wage gaps in the private sector of both countries. Whilst this wage differential is partially offset by women, on average, receiving a workplace specific return which is relatively higher than that paid to men, a substantial and significant unexplained within workplace wage gap remains which is considerably higher in Britain than in Canada. The results are consistent with a prima facie argument that country-specific factors, such as the wage setting environment, are important determinants in explaining the relative size of the gender wage gap.

Suggested Citation

  • Marie Drolet & Karen Mumford, "undated". "The Gender Pay Gap for Private Sector Employees in Canada and Britain," Discussion Papers 09/28, Department of Economics, University of York.
    • Handle: RePEc:yor:yorken:09/28
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.york.ac.uk/media/economics/documents/discussionpapers/2009/0928.pdf
    File Function: Main text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sara Connolly & Mary Gregory, 2008. "Moving Down: Women's Part‐Time Work and Occupational Change in Britain 1991–2001," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(526), pages 52-76, February.
    2. 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.
    3. Anne Daly & Xin Meng & Akira Kawaguchi & Karen Mumford, 2006. "The Gender Wage Gap in Four Countries," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 82(257), pages 165-176, June.
    4. Xin Meng & Dominique Meurs, 2004. "The gender earnings gap: effects of institutions and firms--a comparative study of French and Australian private firms," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 56(2), pages 189-208, April.
    5. Karen Mumford & Peter N Smith, "undated". "The Gender Earnings Gap in Britain," Discussion Papers 04/05, Department of Economics, University of York.
    6. 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.
    7. Karen Mumford & Peter N. Smith, 2007. "The Gender Earnings Gap In Britain: Including The Workplace," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 75(6), pages 653-672, December.
    8. Tracy Regan & Ronald Oaxaca, 2009. "Work experience as a source of specification error in earnings models: implications for gender wage decompositions," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 22(2), pages 463-499, April.
    9. 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.
    10. Bronars, Stephen G & Famulari, Melissa, 1997. "Wage, Tenure, and Wage Growth Variation within and across Establishment," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 15(2), pages 285-317, April.
    11. John J. Abowd & John Haltiwanger & Julia Lane, 2004. "Integrated Longitudinal Employer-Employee Data for the United States," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(2), pages 224-229, May.
    12. Kimberly Bayard & Judith Hellerstein & David Neumark & Kenneth Troske, 2003. "New Evidence on Sex Segregation and Sex Differences in Wages from Matched Employee-Employer Data," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 21(4), pages 887-922, October.
    13. Mark B. Stewart, 1983. "On Least Squares Estimation when the Dependent Variable is Grouped," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 50(4), pages 737-753.
    14. Davidson, Russell & MacKinnon, James G., 1993. "Estimation and Inference in Econometrics," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195060119.
    15. Altonji, Joseph G. & Blank, Rebecca M., 1999. "Race and gender in the labor market," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 48, pages 3143-3259, Elsevier.
    16. Alan Manning, 2010. "The plant size-place effect: agglomeration and monopsony in labour markets," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 10(5), pages 717-744, September.
    17. Erica L. Groshen, 1991. "The Structure of the Female/Male Wage Differential: Is It Who You Are, What You Do, or Where You Work?," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 26(3), pages 457-472.
    18. Michael Baker & Nicole M. Fortin, 2001. "Occupational gender composition and wages in Canada, 1987–1988," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 34(2), pages 345-376, May.
    19. Karen Mumford & Peter N. Smith, 2003. "Determinants of current job tenure: a cross country comparison," Australian Journal of Labour Economics (AJLE), Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre (BCEC), Curtin Business School, vol. 6(3), pages 435-451, September.
    20. Alan Manning & Barbara Petrongolo, 2008. "The Part-Time Pay Penalty for Women in Britain," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(526), pages 28-51, February.
    21. Richard Disney & Amanda Gosling, 2008. "Changing public sector wage differentials in the UK," IFS Working Papers W08/02, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    22. Gary S. Becker, 1962. "Investment in Human Capital: A Theoretical Analysis," NBER Chapters, in: Investment in Human Beings, pages 9-49, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    23. Francine D. Blau & Lawrence M. Kahn, 2003. "Understanding International Differences in the Gender Pay Gap," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 21(1), pages 106-144, January.
    24. Rhys Davies & Richard Welpton, 2008. "How Does Workplace Monitoring Affect the Gender Wage Differential? Analysis of the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings and the 2004 Workplace Employment Relations Survey — A Research Note," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 46(4), pages 732-749, December.
    25. Mueller, Richard E., 1998. "Public-private sector wage differentials in Canada: evidence from quantile regressions," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 60(2), pages 229-235, August.
    26. John T. Addison & Claus Schnabel (ed.), 2003. "International Handbook of Trade Unions," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 2705.
    27. Marie Drolet, 2002. "Can the Workplace Explain Canadian Gender Pay Differentials?," Canadian Public Policy, University of Toronto Press, vol. 28(s1), pages 41-63, May.
    28. 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.
    29. Blau Francine D & Kahn Lawrence M, 2007. "The Gender Pay Gap," The Economists' Voice, De Gruyter, vol. 4(4), pages 1-6, June.
    30. Linda Dickens, 2007. "The Road is Long: Thirty Years of Equality Legislation in Britain," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 45(3), pages 463-494, September.
    31. Marie Drolet, 2002. "Can the workplace explain Canadian gender pay differentials?," New Zealand Economic Papers, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(1), pages 75-77.
    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. Hussein Al-Zyoud & Walid Belassi, 2017. "Gender Segregation and the Gender Wage Gap: Rising Inequality in Alberta and Saskatchewan," Asian Social Science, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 13(2), pages 1-64, February.
    2. Sarah Louise Jewell & Giovanni Razzu & Carl Singleton, 2020. "Who Works for Whom and the UK Gender Pay Gap," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 58(1), pages 50-81, March.
    3. Antonczyk, Dirk & Fitzenberger, Bernd & Sommerfeld, Katrin, 2010. "Rising wage inequality, the decline of collective bargaining, and the gender wage gap," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(5), pages 835-847, October.
    4. Christian Pfeifer, 2014. "The Gender Composition of Establishments' Workforces and Gender Gaps in Wages and Leadership Positions," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 82, pages 69-81, December.
    5. Jiang Li & Benoit Dostie & Gäelle Simard-Duplain, 2020. "What is the Role of Firm-Specific Pay Policies on the Gender Earnings Gap in Canada?," CIRANO Working Papers 2020s-67, CIRANO.
    6. Masakure, Oliver, 2016. "The effect of employee loyalty on wages," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 274-298.
    7. Richard E. Mueller, 2022. "Gender pay gap in the public sector: Evidence from the Canadian Labour Force Survey," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 36(1), pages 29-70, March.
    8. Geraldine Healy & M. Mostak Ahamed, 2019. "Gender Pay Gap, Voluntary Interventions and Recession: The Case of the British Financial Services Sector," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 57(2), pages 302-327, June.
    9. Oliver Masakure & Kris Gerhardt, 2016. "Employee Commitment and Wages in the Private Sector," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 30(1), pages 38-60, March.
    10. Forth, John & Theodoropoulos, Nikolaos, 2022. "Earnings Discrimination in the Workplace," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1110, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    11. Dickson Thomas NDAMSA & Aloysius Mom NJONG & Francis Menjo BAYE & Jackson YOUYEM, 2015. "Investigating the role of male advantage and female disadvantage in explaining the discrimination effect of the gender pay gap in the Cameroon labor market. Oaxaca-Ransom decomposition approach," EuroEconomica, Danubius University of Galati, issue 1(34), pages 55-72, May.
    12. Rachel Aleks & Tina Saksida & Sam Kolahgar, 2021. "Practice What You Preach: The Gender Pay Gap in Labor Union Compensation," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(4), pages 403-435, October.

    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. 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.
    2. Yekaterina Chzhen & Karen Mumford, "undated". "Gender Gaps Across the Earnings Distribution in Britain: Are Women Bossy Enough?," Discussion Papers 09/27, Department of Economics, University of York.
    3. Mumford, Karen A. & Smith, Peter N., 2007. "Assessing the Importance of Male and Female Part-Time Work for the Gender Earnings Gap in Britain," IZA Discussion Papers 2981, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Heinze, Anja, 2010. "Beyond the mean gender wage gap: Decomposition of differences in wage distributions using quantile regression," ZEW Discussion Papers 10-043, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    5. Anja Heinze & Elke Wolf, 2010. "The intra-firm gender wage gap: a new view on wage differentials based on linked employer–employee data," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 23(3), pages 851-879, June.
    6. Sarah Louise Jewell & Giovanni Razzu & Carl Singleton, 2020. "Who Works for Whom and the UK Gender Pay Gap," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 58(1), pages 50-81, March.
    7. Fortin, Nicole & Lemieux, Thomas & Firpo, Sergio, 2011. "Decomposition Methods in Economics," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 1, pages 1-102, Elsevier.
    8. Nordman, Christophe J. & Robilliard, Anne-Sophie & Roubaud, François, 2011. "Gender and ethnic earnings gaps in seven West African cities," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(S1), pages 132-145.
    9. Chatterji, Monojit & Mumford, Karen A. & Smith, Peter N., 2007. "The Public-Private Sector Gender Wage Differential: Evidence from Matched Employee-Workplace Data," IZA Discussion Papers 3158, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Casarico, A. & Lattanzio, S., 2019. "What Firms Do: Gender Inequality in Linked Employer-Employee Data," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 1966, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    11. Hansen, Henrik & Rand, John & Win, Ngu Wah, 2022. "The gender wage gap in Myanmar: Adding insult to injury?," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    12. 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.
    13. Kaya, Ezgi, 2019. "Gender wage gap across the quantiles:What is the role of firm segregation?," Cardiff Economics Working Papers E2019/7, Cardiff University, Cardiff Business School, Economics Section.
    14. Fuchs, Michaela & Rossen, Anja & Weyh, Antje & Wydra-Somaggio, Gabriele, 2019. "Why do women earn more than men in some regions? : Explaining regional differences in the gender pay gap in Germany," IAB-Discussion Paper 201911, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany].
    15. Caliendo, Marco & Lee, Wang-Sheng & Mahlstedt, Robert, 2017. "The gender wage gap and the role of reservation wages: New evidence for unemployed workers," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 161-173.
    16. Antonczyk, Dirk & Fitzenberger, Bernd & Sommerfeld, Katrin, 2010. "Rising wage inequality, the decline of collective bargaining, and the gender wage gap," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(5), pages 835-847, October.
    17. Kaya Ezgi, 2021. "Gender wage gap across the distribution: What is the role of within- and between-firm effects?," IZA Journal of Development and Migration, Sciendo & Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 12(1), pages 1-49, January.
    18. Andrén, Daniela & Andrén, Thomas, 2007. "Occupational Gender Composition and Wages in Romania: From Planned Equality to Market Inequality?," IZA Discussion Papers 3152, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    19. Christian Pfeifer, 2014. "The Gender Composition of Establishments' Workforces and Gender Gaps in Wages and Leadership Positions," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 82, pages 69-81, December.
    20. Engelbert Theurl & Hannes Winner, 2011. "The male–female gap in physician earnings: evidence from a public health insurance system," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 20(10), pages 1184-1200, October.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J0 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General

    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:yor:yorken:09/28. 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: Paul Hodgson (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deyoruk.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.