GENDER WAGE DISPARITIES, OCCUPATIONAL SORTING, AND PRODUCTIVITY-RELATED OUTCOMES
Abstract
The cross sectional data set consisted of 1000 employee records used in this study to explore gender differences in compensation and implications for labour productivity. Gender, age, education, department, job title, seniority, performance evaluation, base pay, bonus, total compensation, and dismissal status were the variables included. The following descriptive statistics, Welch independent-samples tests, chi-square tests, effect-size estimates, and ordinary least-squares regression model with heteroskedasticity-consistent standard errors were used. While women's mean total compensation was 96,417, the mean for men was 104,919, the male advantage was 8.8% when unadjusted. The disparity was almost entirely in base pay, with bonuses being virtually equal. There was strong association between job title and gender, reflecting significant occupational segregation. The adjusted female coefficient is the effect of gender on compensation, holding constant the factors of age, performance evaluation, seniority, education, department, and job title, and is shown to be a nonsignificant difference in compensation of about −0.5%. The relationship between performance evaluation and compensation was positive and the interaction between gender and performance was not significant. The rate of dismissal was also comparable for women and men. The results show that the overall gender wage gap was mainly due to occupational composition and to observed characteristics of the job, but not to a uniform adjusted gender penalty. The data lacked data on interviews, perceptions of employees, and a direct measure of productivity, however, so it was not possible to gain a sense of actual life in the workplace or a causal productivity impact.
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