Strittmatter Anthony, Wunsch Conny
UniDistance Suisse, Brig, Switzerland.
Faculty of Business and Economics, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland.
J Popul Econ. 2025;38(3):59. doi: 10.1007/s00148-025-01115-1. Epub 2025 Jul 8.
This paper shows that gender segregation in the labor market has important implications for the estimation of gender pay gaps. Using Switzerland as an example, we provide evidence that there are sizable segments in the labor market with perfect sorting such that there are no comparable men and women. In these segments, covariate-adjusted gender pay gaps are not identified non-parametrically. Reliability of estimated pay gaps then requires correct functional forms for extrapolation or excluding segments of the labor market with perfect sorting from the analysis. We discuss different estimation choices within this trade-off and show how they affect estimates of unexplained gender pay gaps. We find that enforcing comparability ex ante, estimator choice and functional form restrictions matter greatly. Using a flexible semi-parametric estimator with moderate restrictions on ex ante comparability explains up to 38% more of the raw gender pay gap and results in estimated unexplained gender pay gaps that are up to 44% smaller than standard Blinder-Oaxaca estimates that account for the same wage determinants but ignore lack of overlap.
The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00148-025-01115-1.
本文表明劳动力市场中的性别隔离对性别薪酬差距的估计具有重要影响。以瑞士为例，我们提供的证据表明，劳动力市场中存在相当大的完全分类的部分，以至于没有可比较的男性和女性。在这些部分中，协变量调整后的性别薪酬差距无法通过非参数方法识别。估计薪酬差距的可靠性则需要正确的函数形式进行外推，或者在分析中排除具有完全分类的劳动力市场部分。我们讨论了在此权衡下的不同估计选择，并展示了它们如何影响未解释的性别薪酬差距估计。我们发现，事前强制可比性、估计器选择和函数形式限制非常重要。使用对事前可比性有适度限制的灵活半参数估计器，能比原始性别薪酬差距多解释高达38%的部分，并且导致估计的未解释性别薪酬差距比考虑相同工资决定因素但忽略缺乏重叠情况的标准布林德 - 奥瓦卡估计值小高达44%。
在线版本包含可在10.1007/s00148 - 025 - 01115 - 1获取的补充材料。
