Revisiting the public–private wage gap in Spain: new evidence and interpretation

Alba Couceiro de León and Juan Dolado
Additional contact information
Alba Couceiro de León: Universidad Carlos III de Madrid

SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, 2023, vol. 14, issue 3, No 6, 353-377

Abstract: Abstract This paper updates the available evidence on the public–private wage gap in Spain, which dates back to 2012. Through microdata drawn from the last three waves of the Wage Structure Survey (2010, 2014 and 2018), we study how this gap and its distribution by gender and education have evolved during and after the Great Recession. Conventional Oaxaca-Blinder decompositions are used to divide the raw wage gap into a component explained by differences in characteristics and another one capturing differences in returns and endogenous selection. The main findings are: (i) a strong wage compression by skills, and (ii) a wage premium for less-skilled women in the public sector. Both empirical results can be rationalised by a monopoly union wage-setting model with monopsonistic features and the presence of female statistical discrimination.

Keywords: Public sector; Private sector; Public–private wage gap; Monopsony; Unions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J31 J38 J42 J45 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s13209-023-00277-z Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
Working Paper: Revisiting the public-private wage gap in Spain: New evidence and interpretation (2023)
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:spr:series:v:14:y:2023:i:3:d:10.1007_s13209-023-00277-z

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/13209

DOI: 10.1007/s13209-023-00277-z

Access Statistics for this article

SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association is currently edited by Nezih Guner

More articles in SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association from Springer, Spanish Economic Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().