The Gender Wage Gap as a Function of Educational Degree Choices in an Occupationally Segregated EU Country

Ilias Livanos () and Konstantinos Pouliakas

No 4636, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This study investigates the extent to which differences in the subject of degree studied by male and female university graduates contributes to the gender pay gap, and the reasons underlying their distinct educational choices. The case of Greece is examined due to the fact that it is an EU country with historically large gender discrepancies in earnings and occupational segregation. Using micro-data from the Greek Labour Force Survey (LFS), the returns to academic disciplines are firstly estimated by gender. It is found that the subjects in which women are relatively over-represented (e.g. Education, Humanities) are also those with the lowest wage returns. Oaxaca-Blinder decompositions subsequently imply that gender differences in the type of degree studied can explain an additional 8.4% of the male-female pay gap. Risk-augmented earnings functions of the Hartog-type also indicate that women seek for less risky educations that consequently command lower wage premiums in the job market.

Keywords: returns; subject of degree; gender wage gap; risk; Greece (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J16 J24 J31 J71 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 31 pages
Date: 2009-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu and nep-lab
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published - published as 'Educational segregation and the gender wage gap in Greece' in: Journal of Economic Studies, 2012, 39 (5), 554-575

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp4636.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:iza:izadps:dp4636

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().