Glass Ceilings or Glass Doors? Wage Disparity Within and Between Firms

Krishna Pendakur and Simon Woodcock

No 4626, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We investigate whether immigrant and minority workers’ poor access to high-wage jobs – that is, glass ceilings – is attributable to poor access to jobs in high-wage firms, a phenomenon we call glass doors. Our analysis uses linked employer-employee data to measure mean- and quantile-wage differentials of immigrants and ethnic minorities, both within and across firms. We find that glass ceilings exist for some immigrant groups, and that they are driven in large measure by glass doors. For some immigrant groups, the sorting of these workers across firms accounts for as much as half of the economy-wide wage disparity they face.

Keywords: quantile regression; visible minorities; immigration; wage differentials; glass ceilings; linked employer-employee data (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J15 J31 J71 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 30 pages
Date: 2009-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab and nep-mig
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published - published in: Journal of Business and Economic Statistics, 2010, 28(1), 181-189

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Related works:
Journal Article: Glass Ceilings or Glass Doors? Wage Disparity Within and Between Firms (2010)
Working Paper: Glass Ceilings or Glass Doors? Wage Disparity Within and Between Firms (2009)
Working Paper: Glass Ceilings or Glass Doors? Wage Disparity Within and Between Firms (2008)
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