Name and last name:

Petroula M. Mavrikiou and Julijana Angelovska

Project title:

A cross national study on the Wage gap and INequalities between WOMEN and men (WIN WOMEN)

Abstract(max 300-500 words)

The unadjusted Gender Pay Gap (GPG) represents the difference between average gross hourly earnings of male paid employees and of female paid employees as a percentage of average gross hourly earnings of male paid employees. According to Eurostat (2013) “For the economy as a whole, women's gross hourly earnings were on average 16% below those of men in 2011 in the European Union (EU-27) as well as in the euro area (EA-17).” For example, Slovenia experiences the smallest wage gap (2.3%), Estonia the highest (27.3%) while Sweden and France lie in the 50th percentile (15.8% and 14.7% respectively).

The size and factors that determine wage gender gap, and sometimes even its definition differs across EU. This study aims to understand the gender wage gap across the member states of the European Union and targets to the explanatory variables that statistically account for it.

Some of the main factors that determine wage gender gap are: the type of jobs women and men hold (in terms of sex segregation), motherhood, part time due to childbearing and marital status.

This study specifically focuses on horizontal sex segregation per economic activity and how this affect the gender pay gap across EU countries.

Horizontal occupational sex segregation refers to unequal distribution of men and women among different jobs. In Europe, this segregation is higher in the Scandinavian countries and lower in Southern Europe (Anker 1998).

The methodology used in order to compare sex segregation among EU countries is based on various indices and measurements. Dissimilarity index of Duncan and Duncan (1955), Hakim’s classification index (1992) are two of the main tools used.

Introduction and motivation of visit

Some of the reasons that motivated this research visit at AIAS are given below:

1)To investigate further the Gender Pay Gap

2)Amsterdam Institute for Advanced labour Studies (AIAS) provided the most appropriate infrastructure(s) to fulfill the scientific objectives of the proposed research project.

3)The expertise and the support of the research group and IT personnel of AIAS were important to ensure the success of the proposal.

4)AIAS provided the appropriate data, library of journals and statistical software(s) to begin the analysis and to experiment with the data.

5)Researchers at AIAS have similar interests with the research group and therefore the establishment of further academic collaboration was important.

Scientific objectives of visit

The scientific objectives of this research proposal are the following:

a)Give an up-to date descriptive analysis of the current situation in EU concerning the gender distribution across economic activities.

b)Calculate the dissimilarity index of Duncan and Duncan (1955) and compare it across EU countries

c)Calculate Hakim’s index (1992) and classify all industries based on this.

d)Correlate the above indices with GPG (Gender Pay Gap) and draw conclusions.

e)Cluster EU countries based on dissimilarity index and interpret the results

f)Suggest actions and improvements that policy makers need to take to minimize gender wage gap in certain countries.

Reasons for choosing research infrastructure and datasets/surveys/...

As mentioned above AIAS was the most appropriate infrastructure center to visit in order to fulfill the goals of this research proposal. AIAS could provide to the research group:

  • Statistical software tools such as STATA
  • Access to refereed journals that need subscription and therefore get up-to-date literature on sex segregation and GPG.
  • Human resource: researchers with similar interests with the research group, IT personnel to help us with any hardware or software problems, secretariat to provide us with passwords, offices, PCs etc.

Activities during your visit (research, training, events, ...)

Prior the research visit at AIAS the research group have participated in the Summer School “The gender pay gap revisited – causes and consequences of horizontal and vertical gender inequalities on the labour market” between 7-14/7/2014 at the University of Amsterdam. This Summer School aimed to provide participants with an overview of the causes and consequences of the gender pay gap from a cross-national perspective, increasing the understanding of the methodological challenges in measuring, analyzing and comparing the gender wage gap by applying gender-relevant wage analyses across countries. The content of the Summer School enhanced our efforts on deeper understanding and explaining the gender wage gap.

Method and set-up of research

a)Literature review on gender pay gap and horizontal sex segregation

b)Explore statistical possibilities to deal with the methodological challenges posed by the analysis of horizontal sex segregation

c)Investigate the most appropriate datasets that could fulfill the scientific objectives of the research proposal

d)Implement appropriate methodology on Eurostat dataset concerning economic activities to statistically explore the horizontal sex segregation

Project achievements during visit (and possible difficulties encountered)

a)In depth literature review on gender pay gap and horizontal sex segregation

b)Implementation of cross-national research statistical designand advance analysis

c)Access to subscribed journals and advance statistical software such as STATA

d)First preliminary results were achieved

Preliminary project results and conclusions

As mentioned above the preliminary analysis on horizontal sex segregation was based on two indices. The dissimilarity index of Duncan and Duncan (1995) and Hakim classification index (1992). These two indices provided very interesting results that may give the start of further in depth analysis.

Using Eurostat Labour Force Surveys’dataset of 2010 (Eurostat 2014) concerning the economic activities of industries, dissimilarity index of Duncan and Duncan (1995)verified that even though Scandinavian countries are considered more progressive societies, sex segregation is higher; while southern European countries or the Mediterranean welfare regime (Esping-Andersen’s 1990, 2003) revealed a lower dissimilarity index that corresponds to lower sex segregation. In addition post-communist transitional countries lie in the middle of this classification.

Hakim’s index classifies industries or occupations as women-dominated, gender-integrated and men-dominated. Based on the analysis, this classification showed that EU countries behave more or less the same across economic activities.

Even though these are very preliminary results they suggest that EU countries can be clustered in various ways based on horizontal sex segregation.

Outcomes and future studies

As these are very preliminary results the association between dissimilarity indices and Gender Pay Gap (GPG) level needs to be further investigated.

In addition how EU countries are clustered based on GPG of 2010 Eurostat datasets and how this is affected by sex segregation.

References

Anker, R., (1998). Gender and Jobs. Sex Segregation and Occupations in the World.International Labour Office, Geneva.

Duncan, O.D., Duncan, B., (1955). A methodological analysis of segregation indexes.American Sociological Review 20, 210–217.

Esping-Andersen, G. (1990). The three worlds of welfare capitalism. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Esping-Andersen, G. (2003). Towards the good society, once again? In Paper presented at the 4th international research conference on social security, Antwerp, 5–7 May.

Eurostat(2013)

Eurostat (2014)

Hakim, C., (1992). Explaining trends in occupational segregation: the measurement,causes, and consequences of the sexual division of labour. European SociologicalReview 8 (2), 127–152.