Hiring and the Dynamics of the Gender Gap

Hannah Illing (), Hanna Schwank () and Linh T. Tô ()
Additional contact information
Hannah Illing: University of Bonn, Institute for Employment Research (IAB) & Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
Hanna Schwank: University of Bonn & Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
Linh T. Tô: Boston University

No 339, ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series from University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany

Abstract: We investigate how the same hiring opportunity leads to different labor market outcomes for male and female full-time workers. To study firms’ wage-setting behavior following exogenous vacancies, we analyze the wages of new hires after sudden worker deaths between 1981 and 2016. Using admin- istrative data from Germany, we apply a novel technique to identify external replacement workers, and we use machine learning to compare replacements hired for comparable positions by similar firms. We find that female replacement workers’ starting wages are, on average, 10 log points lower than those of replacing men of the same productivity. Differences in labor supply, within-firm ad- justments, or outside options do not explain this gap; instead, we attribute it to gender differences in bargaining. We conclude that a significant portion of the gender wage gap emerges within firms at the hiring stage.

Keywords: Gender Wage Gap; Hiring; Labor Supply (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J2 J31 J63 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 67 pages
Date: 2024-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-big, nep-dem, nep-gen, nep-hrm and nep-lab
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.econtribute.de/RePEc/ajk/ajkdps/ECONtribute_339_2024.pdf Second version, 2025 (application/pdf)

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:ajk:ajkdps:339

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series from University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany Niebuhrstrasse 5, 53113 Bonn, Germany.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ECONtribute Office ().