About time: the narrowing gender wage gap in Austria

Author(s)
René Böheim, Marian Fink, Christine Zulehner
Abstract

We examine the gender wage gap in Austria from 2005 to 2017 using data from EU-SILC. The raw gap of hourly wages declined from 18.6 log points in 2005 to 14.9 log points in 2017. We use standard decomposition techniques that correct for differences in the distributions of human capital and other variables between men and women. Decompositions of the wage gap indicate that both the explained and the unexplained part of the gender wage gap decreased substantially over the last ten years. Using the approach developed by Neumark (J Hum Resour 22:279-295, 1988), the unexplained wage gap shrank from 8.7 log points in 2005 to 5.1 log points in 2017. The main reason for the decline in wage differences was the relative improvement of women's observed and unobserved characteristics.

Organisation(s)
Department of Economics
External organisation(s)
Johannes Kepler Universität Linz, Österreichisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung (WIFO), IZA - Institute of Labor Economics, CESifo Research Network, Global Labor Organization (GLO), Télécom ParisTech
Journal
Empirica
Volume
48
Pages
803–843
No. of pages
41
ISSN
0340-8744
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10663-020-09492-4
Publication date
10-2020
Peer reviewed
Yes
Austrian Fields of Science 2012
502002 Labour economics, 502046 Economic policy
Keywords
ASJC Scopus subject areas
Economics and Econometrics
Sustainable Development Goals
SDG 5 - Gender Equality, SDG 10 - Reduced Inequalities
Portal url
https://ucris.univie.ac.at/portal/en/publications/about-time-the-narrowing-gender-wage-gap-in-austria(d486afd8-e7aa-4c55-806a-5c84a8622f88).html