09-03-2017, 09:07 AM
I should note that I don't think the data collection now being ended was good enough, but we need better data. This wage gap does exist, but we don't know completely to what extent because of a lack of data. This is the conclusion of a meta-analysis done a little over a decade ago on this issue:
Weichselbaumer, D., & Winter‐Ebmer, R. (2005). A meta‐analysis of the international gender wage gap. Journal of Economic Surveys, 19(3), 479-511. Chicago
This isn't just a US issue, it's global. It exists, though when you look at the methods you can see that there are differences in the numbers when certain things are either left out or included. This is why this meta-analysis is a handy tool to be able to look at these studies and see those differences, finding out that yes, the gender wage gap exists. Yes, it is decreasing. No, it is not likely as large as what some individual studies have found, and that is a result of a lack of data and assumptions having to be made.
Interestingly enough, though, while this is a topic in the public sphere right now, it isn't as hot a topic in research these days. It is still studied some, but not nearly as much as it was in the past few decades.
Quote:In this paper, we review the existing worldwide literature on the decomposition of gender wage gaps. We investigated more than 260 published papers covering 63 countries during the time period 1960s – 1990s. Meta-regression analysis allows us t oreview and compare this vast amount of literature in a concise and systematic way.Particular emphasis is placed on a proper consideration of the quality and reliability of the underlying study which is done by a weighting with quality indicators as well as by a direct inclusion of quality indicators in the meta-regression analysis.
There is much discussion about how to ideally investigate discrimination in wages. Meta-analysis cannot answer this question, but provides an estimate of how certain restrictions in a particular data set or the choice of a particular specification will affect the results. Our results show that data restrictions have the biggest impact on the resulting gender wage gap. Generally, studies using data sets which are limited to particular subgroups (to never-married workers, new entrants in the labor market, or workers in narrow occupations) and therefore provide the researcher with a better comp arability of the productivity of workers end up with lower gender wage gaps. In contrast to these strong results, the choice of econometric methods is less important as it concerns the concrete decomposition technique or the use of more advanced methods in the wage regressions. Frequently, researchers do not have hourly wages or actual experience at their disposal, let alone a complete record of human capital characteristics, like training on-the-job or job tenure with the actual employer. Missing or imprecise data on these human capital factors can result in serious biases in the calculation of the discrimination component. For example, in the fixed effects regressions we find that studies where work experience is missing seriously overestimate the unexplained gender wage gap. A similar problem arises, if no hourly wages are available and they have to be substituted with monthly or annual earnings, which are contaminated with labor market interruptions. Our study also found no big differences of how certain meta-independent variables affect the calculated gender wage gap in different regions of the world.
Furthermore, our analysis allowed us to investigate the gender wage gap overtime. From the 1960s to the 1990s, raw wage differentials worldwide have fallen substantially from around 65 to only 30%. The bulk of this decline, however,must be attributed to better labor market endowments of females which came about by better education, training, and work attachment. Looking at the published estimates for the discrimination (or unexplained) component of the wage gap yields a less promising perspective: There is no decline over time. However, these published estimates are based on different methods and data sources. Our meta-regression analysis allows to construct a specification for a standardized gender wage gap study: applying such a unique specification – concerning data selection as well as econometric method – gives rise to a slightly more optimistic picture: The ratio of what women would earn absent of discrimination relative to their actual wages decreased approximately by 0.17% annually. This indicates that a continuous, even if moderate, equalization between the sexes is taking place.
Weichselbaumer, D., & Winter‐Ebmer, R. (2005). A meta‐analysis of the international gender wage gap. Journal of Economic Surveys, 19(3), 479-511. Chicago
This isn't just a US issue, it's global. It exists, though when you look at the methods you can see that there are differences in the numbers when certain things are either left out or included. This is why this meta-analysis is a handy tool to be able to look at these studies and see those differences, finding out that yes, the gender wage gap exists. Yes, it is decreasing. No, it is not likely as large as what some individual studies have found, and that is a result of a lack of data and assumptions having to be made.
Interestingly enough, though, while this is a topic in the public sphere right now, it isn't as hot a topic in research these days. It is still studied some, but not nearly as much as it was in the past few decades.
