 Hiring and the Dynamics of the Gender GapHannah Illing (), Hanna Schwank () and Linh Tô () CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series from University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany Abstract: We investigate how the same hiring opportunity leads to different labor market outcomes for male and female full-time workers. Using administrative data from Germany spanning 1981 to 2016, we analyze firms’ wage-setting behavior in response to exogenous vacancies caused by sudden worker deaths. By identifying external replacement workers, we compare positions that, ex-ante, are equally likely to hire a male or female worker. Our analysis shows that female replacement workers’ starting wages are, on average, 11 log points lower than those of equally productive male counterparts. This gap is unlikely to be explained by differences in hours, within-firm adjustments, or outside options. Instead, the results suggest that firms may statistically discriminate by gender and that differences in worker bargaining play an important role. The gender hiring opportunity gap is lower in contexts where gender equality norms are stronger. These findings suggest that a significant portion of the gender wage gap originates within firms at the hiring stage, contributing to our understanding of the mechanisms behind persistent gender disparities in wages. Keywords: Economics of Gender; Wage Differentials; Vacancies (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bon:boncrc:crctr224_2025_689 Access Statistics for this paper More papers in CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series from University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany Kaiserstr. 1, 53113 Bonn , Germany. |
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