Decomposing Gender Wage Gaps - A Family Economics Perspective

Konferenzbeitrag

We show that parts of the unexplained wage gap in standard Oaxaca-Blinder decompositions result from the neglect of the role played by the family for individual wages. We present a simple model of dual-earner households facing a trade-off regarding whose career to promote and show analytically that the standard Oaxaca-Blinder approach overestimates the degree of pay discrimination. Unbiased decompositions can be obtained when the Oaxaca-Blinder wage equation is augmented by the characteristics of the individual's partner. In an empirical application, we find that this extended decomposition explains considerably larger shares of the gender wage gap than does the standard decomposition.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: Beiträge zur Jahrestagung des Vereins für Socialpolitik 2021: Climate Economics

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials ; Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination ; Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure; Domestic Abuse ; Labor Discrimination ; Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
• Subject: Gender wage gap ; Oaxaca-Blinder ; dual-earner households ; discrimination

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Averkamp, Dorothée ; Bredemeier, Christian ; Juessen, Falko
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics
• (where): Kiel, Hamburg
• (when): 2021

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/242361
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:45 AM CET