How Cyclical Is a Gap? Composition-Adjusted Evidence on the Gender Wage Gap

João Pereira, Raul Ramos and Pedro Martins

No 1746, GLO Discussion Paper Series from Global Labor Organization (GLO)

Abstract: We propose a simple and novel approach to estimate the cyclicality of gaps using cross-sectional data. Our method controls for composition effects in contexts in which panel data cannot be leveraged. Our method also provides useful insights for assessing common trends in difference-in-differences analyses. We illustrate the approach studying the gender wag gap (GWG) in Portugal, finding that it is generally procyclical, except at the top of the distribution. This procyclicality stems from the unexplained component of the GWG rather than from differences in observed characteristics. The results also do not support the hypothesis that GWG cyclicality is driven by discrimination.

Keywords: Wage decompositions; Gender gaps; Wage cyclicality; Discrimination (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E32 J16 J31 J71 J82 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/340792/1/GLO-DP-1746.pdf (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:zbw:glodps:1746

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in GLO Discussion Paper Series from Global Labor Organization (GLO) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics ().