Does Pay Transparency Affect the Gender Wage Gap? Evidence From Austria

Andreas Gulyas, Sebastian Seitz and Sourav Sinha

CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series from University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany

Abstract: We study the 2011 Austrian Pay Transparency Law, which requires firms above a size threshold to publish reports on the gender pay gap. We exploit variation across firm size and time, to study the effects of transparency on the gender wage gap and individual wages, using the universe of Austrian social security records. Our results show that the policy had no discernible effects on male and female wages, and therefore no significant effects on the gender wage gap. The effects are precisely estimated and we can rule out that the policy narrowed the gender wage gap by more than half a percentage point. We find no evidence for wage compression at the establishment level. The policy led to an increase in the retention rate of workers, which points towards higher job satisfaction due to pay transparency.

Keywords: Pay Transparency; Gender Wage Gap (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J08 J31 J38 J78 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 42
Date: 2020-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-gen and nep-hrm
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Does Pay Transparency Affect the Gender Wage Gap? Evidence from Austria (2023)
Working Paper: Does Pay Transparency Affect the Gender Wage Gap? Evidence From Austria (2021)
Working Paper: Does pay transparency affect the gender wage gap? Evidence from Austria (2021)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bon:boncrc:crctr224_2020_194v1

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