Firms and the Gender Wage Gap: A Comparison of Eleven Countries

Marco G. Palladino, Antoine Bertheau, Alexander Hijzen, Astrid Kunze, Cesar Barreto, Dogan Gülümser, Marta Lachowska, Anne Sophie Lassen, Salvatore Lattanzio, Benjamin Lochner, Stefano Lombardi, Jordy Meekes, Balázs Muraközy and Oskar Nordström Skans

No 181, Working Papers from VATT Institute for Economic Research

Abstract: We quantify the role of gender-specific firm wage premiums in explaining the private-sector gender gap in hourly wages using a harmonized research design across 11 matched employer-employee datasets — ten European countries and Washington State, USA. These premiums contribute to the gender wage gap through two channels: women’s concentration in lower-paying firms (sorting) and women receiving lower premiums than men within the same firm (pay-setting). We find that firm wage premiums account for 10 to 30 percent of the gender wage gap. While both mechanisms matter, sorting is the predominant driver of the firm contribution to the gender wage gap in most countries. We document three patterns that are broadly consistent across countries: (1) women’s sorting into lower-paying firms increases with age; (2) women are more concentrated in low-paying firms with a high share of part-time workers; and (3) women receive about 90 percent of the rents that men receive from firm surplus gains.

Keywords: Gender wage gap; firms; cross-country comparison; J24; J31; J71; C52; fi=Tulonjako ja eriarvoisuus|sv=Inkomstfördelning och ojämlikhet|en=Income distribution and inequality|; fi=Työmarkkinat|sv=Arbetsmarknad|en=Labour markets| (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.doria.fi/handle/10024/193690

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:fer:wpaper:181

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from VATT Institute for Economic Research Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Anita Niskanen ().