IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/zewdip/5332.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Gender wage differences in West Germany: a cohort analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Fitzenberger, Bernd
  • Wunderlich, Gaby

Abstract

A comprehensive descriptive analysis of gender wage differences over a long time period is missing for West Germany. Using an empirical approach which takes into account explicitely changes of wage distributions for both males and females as well as life-cycle and birth cohort effects, we go beyond conventional decomposition techniques of the average gender wage gap. The paper provides some stylized facts of the level and dynamics of the gender wage gap from 1975 - 1995. The empirical analysis is based upon the IAB-Beschäftigtenstichprobe. Our findings confirm the importance of distributional effects relating to skill level and employment status. While life-cycle wage growth is in general much lower for females compared to males, comparing their estimated time trends implies that the gender wage gap has narrowed substantially in the lower part of the wage distribution especially for low-and medium-skilled females but much less so in the upper part of the wage distribution. Surprisingly, we do not find any cohort effects for wages of female employees.

Suggested Citation

  • Fitzenberger, Bernd & Wunderlich, Gaby, 2000. "Gender wage differences in West Germany: a cohort analysis," ZEW Discussion Papers 00-48, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:zewdip:5332
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/24396/1/dp0048.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sims,Christopher A. (ed.), 1994. "Advances in Econometrics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521444606.
    2. Jennifer Hunt, 2002. "The Transition in East Germany: When Is a Ten-Point Fall in the Gender Wage Gap Bad News?," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 20(1), pages 148-169, January.
    3. Sims,Christopher A. (ed.), 1994. "Advances in Econometrics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521444590.
    4. Amanda Gosling & Stephen Machin & Costas Meghir, 2000. "The Changing Distribution of Male Wages in the U.K," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 67(4), pages 635-666.
    5. Reinhard Hujer & Bernd Fitzenberger & Reinhold Schnabel & Thomas E. MaCurdy, 2001. "Testing for uniform wage trends in West-Germany: A cohort analysis using quantile regressions for censored data," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 26(1), pages 41-86.
    6. Powell, James L., 1986. "Censored regression quantiles," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 143-155, June.
    7. Möller Joachim, 1999. "Die Entwicklung der qualifikatorischen Lohnund Beschäftigungsstruktur in Deutschland / Changes of the Structure of Wages and Employment with Respect to Qualifications in Germany: Eine empirische Besta," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 219(1-2), pages 8-31, February.
    8. Fitzenberger, Bernd, 1998. "The moving blocks bootstrap and robust inference for linear least squares and quantile regressions," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 82(2), pages 235-287, February.
    9. Blau, Francine D & Kahn, Lawrence M, 1996. "Wage Structure and Gender Earnings Differentials: An International Comparison," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 63(250), pages 29-62, Suppl..
    10. Lauer, Charlotte, 2000. "Gender wage gap in West Germany: how far do gender differences in human capital matter?," ZEW Discussion Papers 00-07, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    11. Bernhard Boockmann & Viktor Steiner, 2006. "Cohort effects and the returns to education in West Germany," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(10), pages 1135-1152.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Fitzenberger, Bernd & Reize, Frank, 2002. "Quantilsregressionen der westdeutschen Verdienste: Ein Vergleich zwischen der Gehalts- und Lohnstrukturerhebung und der IAB-Beschäftigtenstichprobe," ZEW Discussion Papers 02-79, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    2. Victor Chernozhukov & Iván Fernández‐Val & Blaise Melly, 2013. "Inference on Counterfactual Distributions," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 81(6), pages 2205-2268, November.
    3. Manuel Arellano & Stéphane Bonhomme, 2017. "Quantile Selection Models With an Application to Understanding Changes in Wage Inequality," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 85, pages 1-28, January.
    4. Bilias, Yannis & Chen, Songnian & Ying, Zhiliang, 2000. "Simple resampling methods for censored regression quantiles," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 99(2), pages 373-386, December.
    5. 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.
    6. Bellmann, Lutz & Gartner, Hermann, 2003. "Fakten zur Entwicklung der qualifikatorischen und sektoralen Lohnstruktur (Facts on the development of the qualification-related and sectoral wage structure)," Mitteilungen aus der Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany], vol. 36(4), pages 493-508.
    7. Wilke, Ralf A. & Fitzenberger, Bernd & Zhang, Xuan, 2004. "A Note on Implementing Box-Cox Quantile Regression," ZEW Discussion Papers 04-61, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    8. Bellmann, Lutz & Gartner, Hermann, 2003. "Fakten zur Entwicklung der qualifikatorischen und sektoralen Lohnstruktur (Facts on the development of the qualification-related and sectoral wage structure)," Mitteilungen aus der Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany], vol. 36(4), pages 493-508.
    9. Oka, Tatsushi & Qu, Zhongjun, 2011. "Estimating structural changes in regression quantiles," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 162(2), pages 248-267, June.
    10. Richard Blundell & Amanda Gosling & Hidehiko Ichimura & Costas Meghir, 2007. "Changes in the Distribution of Male and Female Wages Accounting for Employment Composition Using Bounds," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 75(2), pages 323-363, March.
    11. Eisenhauer, Philipp & Pfeiffer, Friedhelm, 2008. "Assessing intergenerational earnings persistence among German workers," Zeitschrift für ArbeitsmarktForschung - Journal for Labour Market Research, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany], vol. 41(2/3), pages 119-137.
    12. Victor Chernozhukov & Iv·n Fern·ndez-Val & Alfred Galichon, 2010. "Quantile and Probability Curves Without Crossing," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 78(3), pages 1093-1125, May.
    13. Manuel Arellano & Stéphane Bonhomme, 2017. "Sample Selection in Quantile Regression: A Survey," Working Papers wp2018_1702, CEMFI.
    14. Manuel Arellano & Stéphane Bonhomme, 2017. "Sample Selection in Quantile Regression: A Survey," Working Papers wp2017_1702, CEMFI.
    15. Joshua Angrist & Victor Chernozhukov & Iván Fernández-Val, 2006. "Quantile Regression under Misspecification, with an Application to the U.S. Wage Structure," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 74(2), pages 539-563, March.
    16. Claudia Olivetti, 2008. "Gender and the Labour Market: An International Perspective and the Case of Italy," Rivista di Politica Economica, SIPI Spa, vol. 98(3), pages 3-32, May-June.
    17. 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.
    18. Mirko Draca & Stephen Machin, 2015. "Crime and Economic Incentives," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 7(1), pages 389-408, August.
    19. Eisenhauer, Philipp & Pfeiffer, Friedhelm, 2008. "Assessing intergenerational earnings persistence among German workers," Zeitschrift für ArbeitsmarktForschung - Journal for Labour Market Research, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany], vol. 41(2/3), pages 119-137.
    20. Parente Paulo M.D.C. & Santos Silva João M.C., 2016. "Quantile Regression with Clustered Data," Journal of Econometric Methods, De Gruyter, vol. 5(1), pages 1-15, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Gender Wage Gap; Quantile Regression; Cohort Analysis;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J71 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination - - - Hiring and Firing
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials

    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:zbw:zewdip:5332. 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/zemande.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.