Is the Gender Pay Gap Largest at the Top?

Ariel Binder, Amanda Eng, Kendall Houghton and Andrew Foote

Working Papers from U.S. Census Bureau, Center for Economic Studies

Abstract: No: it is at least as large at bottom percentiles of the earnings distribution. Conditional quantile regressions reveal that while the gap at top percentiles is largest among the most-educated, the gap at bottom percentiles is largest among the least-educated. Gender differences in labor supply create more pay inequality among the least-educated than they do among the most-educated. The pay gap has declined throughout the distribution since 2006, but it declined more for the most-educated women. Current economics-of-gender research focuses heavily on the top end; equal emphasis should be placed on mechanisms driving gender inequality for noncollege-educated workers.

Keywords: gender pay gap; education; conditional quantile regression; glass ceiling; labor supply (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I24 J16 J31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 12 pages
Date: 2023-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-gen, nep-hrm and nep-ltv
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https://www2.census.gov/library/working-papers/2023/adrm/ces/CES-WP-23-61.pdf First version, 2023 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Is the Gender Pay Gap Largest at the Top? (2024)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cen:wpaper:23-61

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