Using Firm-Level Data to Assess Gender Wage Discrimination in the Belgian Labour Market

D. Borowczyk Martins () and Vincent Vandenberghe
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D. Borowczyk Martins: University of BristoL, Department of Economics

No 2010007, LIDAM Discussion Papers IRES from Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES)

Abstract: In this paper we explore a matched employer-employee data set to investigate the presence of gender wage discrimination in the Belgian private economy labour market. We identify and measure gender wage discrimination from firm-level data using a labour index decomposition pioneered by Hellerstein and Neumark (1995), which allows us to compare direct estimates of a gender productivity differential with those of a gender labour costs differential. We take advantage of the panel structure of the data set and identify gender wage discrimination from within-firm variation. Moreover, inspired by recent developments in the production function estimation literature, we address the problem of endogeneity in input choice using a structural production function estimator (Levinsohn and Petrin, 2003). Our results suggest that there is no gender wage discrimination inside private firms located in Belgium.

Keywords: labour productivity; wages; gender discrimination; structural production function estimation; panel data (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C52 D24 J24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 37
Date: 2010-03-16
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-bec and nep-lab
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ctl:louvir:2010007

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