Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP4270
Authors: Stepan Jurajda; Heike Harmgart
Abstract: We compare the importance of occupational gender segregation for the gender wage gap in East and West Germany in 1995 using a sample of social-security wage records for full-time workers. East Germany, which features a somewhat higher degree of occupational segregation, has a gender wage gap in the order of one fifth of the West German gap. Segregation is not related to the West German wage gap, but in East Germany, wages of both men and women are higher in predominantly female occupations. East German female employees apparently have better observable and unobservable characteristics than their male colleagues. These findings are in contrast to a large US literature, but are consistent with the imposition of high wage levels in East Germany at the outset of reforms and the selection of only high-skill women into employment. Finally, conditioning on unobservable labour quality differences using the longitudinal dimension of the data, there is a negligible impact of segregation in both parts of Germany.
Keywords: gender wage gap; occupational segregation; transition
JEL Codes: J16; J21; J71
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| occupational gender segregation (J16) | wages (J31) |
| occupational gender segregation (J16) | gender wage gap in West Germany (J31) |
| occupational segregation in East Germany (J79) | gender wage gap (J31) |
| unobservable labor quality differences (J24) | impact of gender segregation on wages (J79) |
| high wage levels in East Germany (J31) | characteristics of female employees (J21) |
| transition path of East Germany (P27) | wage structure (J31) |