Reducing gender wage inequality increases economic prosperity for all: Insights from Australia

Tom Kennedy, Maria Rae, Alison Sheridan and Abbas Valadkhani

Economic Analysis and Policy, 2017, vol. 55, issue C, 14-24

Abstract: This paper extends the debate about redressing persistent gender inequality in Australia by examining the relationship between labour productivity and the wage gap in all states and territories (1986–2013). It is a critical case study as Australia’s widening gender wage gap is contrary to other developed nations. Using four different estimation methods, we find that reducing the gap by 10% can boost per capita output up to 3%. To check the robustness of our findings, we also control for the effects of both physical and human capital. Our results suggest there exists a strong business case for eliminating the gender wage gap. Given the tangible benefits to both equity and efficiency, such a goal should be of paramount importance for policy makers.

Keywords: Australia; Gender; Per capita output; Wage gap (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J16 J31 J71 O15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0313592617300425
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecanpo:v:55:y:2017:i:c:p:14-24

DOI: 10.1016/j.eap.2017.04.003

Access Statistics for this article

Economic Analysis and Policy is currently edited by Clevo Wilson

More articles in Economic Analysis and Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().