Gender disparities in top earnings: measurement and facts for Denmark 1980-2013

Niels-Jakob Harbo Hansen (), Karl Harmenberg, Erik Öberg () and Hans Sievertsen
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Niels-Jakob Harbo Hansen: International Monetary Fund
Erik Öberg: Uppsala University

The Journal of Economic Inequality, 2021, vol. 19, issue 2, No 6, 347-362

Abstract: Abstract Extending the work of Atkinson et al. (J. Econ. Inequal. 16, 225–256, 2018), we decompose top-earnings gender disparities into a glass-ceiling coefficient and a top-earnings gender gap. The decomposition uses that both male and female top earnings are Pareto distributed. If interpreting top-earnings gender disparities as caused by a female-specific earnings tax, the top-earnings gender gap and glass-ceiling coefficient measure the tax level and tax progressivity, respectively. Using Danish data on earnings, we show that the top-earnings gender gap and the glass-ceiling coefficient evolve differently across time, the life cycle, and educational groups. In particular, while the top-earnings gender gap has been decreasing in Denmark over the period 1980-2013, the glass-ceiling coefficient has been remarkably stable.

Keywords: Decomposition; Gender gap; Glass ceiling; Summary statistics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Working Paper: On Using Pareto Distributions for Measuring Top-Income Gender Disparities (2019)
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DOI: 10.1007/s10888-020-09476-1

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