Publication: Gender Earnings Gaps in the World
Loading...
Files in English
665 downloads
Date
2012
ISSN
Published
2012
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
This paper documents gender disparities in labor earnings for sixty-four countries around the world. Disparities are partially attributed to gender differences in observable socio-demographic and job characteristics. These characteristics are used to match males and females such that gender earnings disparities are computed only among individuals with the same characteristics, as in Ñopo (2008). After comparing males and females with the same characteristics we found that the earnings gap falls on a range between 8% and 48% of average females' earnings, being more pronounced in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. The unexplained earnings gaps are more pronounced among part-time workers and those with low education.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Daza, Nancy; Ñopo, Hugo; Ramos, Johanna. 2012. Gender Earnings Gaps in the World. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/9114 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication New Century, Old Disparities : Gender and Ethnic Earnings Gaps in Latin America and the Caribbean(Washington, DC: Inter-American Development Bank and the World Bank, 2012-09-07)Despite sustained economic growth at the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century, Latin America and the Caribbean still faces high inequality and weak indicators of well-being among certain population groups. Women, people of African ancestry, and indigenous peoples are often at the bottom of the income distribution. The share of female-headed households rose in the past 20 years. By the beginning of the 1990s, women headed 1.2 percent of complete households (households in which both husband and wife are present) and 79.8 percent of single- head households. This book presents a regional overview of gender and ethnic disparities in labor earnings during this last turn of the century. Latin America and the Caribbean provide a rich environment for studying social inequality, because historical inequalities along gender and ethnic lines persist, despite positive indicators of economic development. The extent of inequality and its probable causes vary widely across the many countries in the region. The book adopts a sophisticated econometric methodology for measuring earnings gaps and applies it consistently across and within countries to measure gender and racial or ethnic differences. The analysis includes a dynamic dimension that sheds light on the evolution of earnings gaps over time. The book offers important insights on economic and political strategies that could be adopted to reduce inequality. The reduction of gender-based segregation in the workplace represents an area in which policy interventions can improve the efficiency of labor markets. Determining whether addressing occupational rather than hierarchical segregation is more effective is one of the areas of policy design to which this book aims to make a contribution. Latin America and the Caribbean is also a racially and ethnically diverse region, with some 400 ethnic groups.Publication Gender and Mobility in the Developing World(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2012)'Access' is primarily a gendered phenomenon in the developing countries, pertaining to all the subsets of access, i.e. access to information, rights, land, money, education, skills, political participation and voice. It thus becomes incumbent upon the policy makers and development practitioners to shred down the details of these 'constrained accesses' to truly empower women. This study highlights the ways in which constrained (daily) mobility i.e. the element of physical access to different facilities bears upon the issue of women empowerment. Rather than being a singular function of transport provision, the daily mobility of women in developing countries is guided by a set of complex hierarchies. This study contends that the following elements, though not exhaustive in nature, are highly influential in gendering of mobility in the present times: prevalent social/cultural norms, transport infrastructure, physical/area planning, effects of globalization, governance (women's presence and participation in informal sector and micro-credit schemes), pre and post disaster/conflict rehabilitation process and access to information and communication technologies (ICTs). Although the study is primarily a review of recent academic and policy-oriented literature, the core idea has been to salvage the theme of 'women and transport' from the narrow confines of transport-related understanding and highlight that 'mobility' is a multi-faceted phenomenon and bears significant impact on the overarching aim of women empowerment.Publication Occupational Training to Reduce Gender Segregation: The Impacts of ProJoven(2008)This paper illustrates the process of program evaluation for ProJoven, the Peruvian youth labor training program. The program provides beneficiaries with basic three-month training in low-skill occupations and with internship opportunities. ProJoven's design promotes gender equality by encouraging female participation in training for traditionally male-dominated occupations and by providing subsidies so mothers with children can participate. Complementing detailed fieldwork in search of the appropriate control group, the econometric work implements a two-stage matching procedure that includes propensity scores (on the first stage), and gender and labor income (on the second one). The matching on gender allows identification of differentiated program impacts on men and women. The matching on income attacks the problem of Ashenfelter's Dips. The evaluation shows substantial differences in ProJoven's impact for men and women. Eighteen months after participation in the program, employment rates for women improved by about 15% (while employment for men reduced by 11%), gender occupational segregation reduced by 30% and women's labor income improved by 93% (while men's earnings increased by 11%). On the other hand, the cost of the promotion of gender equality represented only 1.5% of ProJoven's total budget. These results suggest that labor training programs that promote equal gender participation have disproportionately positive effects on outcomes for women trainees in a labor market with substantial gender differences.Publication Gender Perceptions In Southeast Asian Countries : Findings From Jica-Ri Value Surveys(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2012)1. Introduction It is increasingly clear that gender equality varies conceptually from one country to another, as shown by indicators developed in the 1990s by several international organizations. The UNDP Human Development Report, for example, introduced two indicators in 1995: the Gender-related Development Index (GDI) and the Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM), both of which demonstrate that women�s basic capabilities and the extent of their participation in political and economic decision-making processes are highly variable. While these and similar indicators are based on macro indices, some studies focus on the gender equality perceptions of individuals. The literature shows that attitudes toward gender equality are affected by respondents' own backgrounds, such as marital status and educational attainment, and that the effects can differ from one country to another. This research allows policy makers to differentiate groups and thereby to consider what kinds of policies can have what kinds of impacts on whose gender perceptions. The main difficulty with these types of studies is that they require large amounts of survey data on people's perception. Using data from a recently conducted value survey, the present paper looks at the gender perception of people in four Southeast Asian countries: Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines. The main objective is to determine which socio-demographic factors have significant impacts on people's attitudes toward gender issues in this historically and culturally diverse region. As is described in detail below, the analysis shows that Muslim identity tends to be associated with acceptance of male authority.Publication The Role of Technological Change in Increasing Gender Equity with a Focus on Information and Communications Technology(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2012)This paper considers the potential role of various transformative general-purpose technologies in affecting gender equity. The particular technologies considered at length and contrasted are four network technologies: electricity and water provision on the one hand, and the newer information and communications technologies of the Internet and mobile phones on the other. Available evidence on the effects of transformative technologies, both historically and in recent developing country contexts, is surveyed. The results indicate difficulties in finding cleanly measurable factors due to the complex nature of the effects of the technologies, as well as the containment of many effects in the household/nonmarket sector rather than the market sector. However, there is some optimism regarding continued expansion of electrification and the use of mobile phones in particular for improving women's empowerment.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication World Development Report 2006(Washington, DC, 2005)This year’s Word Development Report (WDR), the twenty-eighth, looks at the role of equity in the development process. It defines equity in terms of two basic principles. The first is equal opportunities: that a person’s chances in life should be determined by his or her talents and efforts, rather than by pre-determined circumstances such as race, gender, social or family background. The second principle is the avoidance of extreme deprivation in outcomes, particularly in health, education and consumption levels. This principle thus includes the objective of poverty reduction. The report’s main message is that, in the long run, the pursuit of equity and the pursuit of economic prosperity are complementary. In addition to detailed chapters exploring these and related issues, the Report contains selected data from the World Development Indicators 2005‹an appendix of economic and social data for over 200 countries. This Report offers practical insights for policymakers, executives, scholars, and all those with an interest in economic development.Publication Classroom Assessment to Support Foundational Literacy(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-03-21)This document focuses primarily on how classroom assessment activities can measure students’ literacy skills as they progress along a learning trajectory towards reading fluently and with comprehension by the end of primary school grades. The document addresses considerations regarding the design and implementation of early grade reading classroom assessment, provides examples of assessment activities from a variety of countries and contexts, and discusses the importance of incorporating classroom assessment practices into teacher training and professional development opportunities for teachers. The structure of the document is as follows. The first section presents definitions and addresses basic questions on classroom assessment. Section 2 covers the intersection between assessment and early grade reading by discussing how learning assessment can measure early grade reading skills following the reading learning trajectory. Section 3 compares some of the most common early grade literacy assessment tools with respect to the early grade reading skills and developmental phases. Section 4 of the document addresses teacher training considerations in developing, scoring, and using early grade reading assessment. Additional issues in assessing reading skills in the classroom and using assessment results to improve teaching and learning are reviewed in section 5. Throughout the document, country cases are presented to demonstrate how assessment activities can be implemented in the classroom in different contexts.Publication World Development Report 2011(World Bank, 2011)The 2011 World development report looks across disciplines and experiences drawn from around the world to offer some ideas and practical recommendations on how to move beyond conflict and fragility and secure development. The key messages are important for all countries-low, middle, and high income-as well as for regional and global institutions: first, institutional legitimacy is the key to stability. When state institutions do not adequately protect citizens, guard against corruption, or provide access to justice; when markets do not provide job opportunities; or when communities have lost social cohesion-the likelihood of violent conflict increases. Second, investing in citizen security, justice, and jobs is essential to reducing violence. But there are major structural gaps in our collective capabilities to support these areas. Third, confronting this challenge effectively means that institutions need to change. International agencies and partners from other countries must adapt procedures so they can respond with agility and speed, a longer-term perspective, and greater staying power. Fourth, need to adopt a layered approach. Some problems can be addressed at the country level, but others need to be addressed at a regional level, such as developing markets that integrate insecure areas and pooling resources for building capacity Fifth, in adopting these approaches, need to be aware that the global landscape is changing. Regional institutions and middle income countries are playing a larger role. This means should pay more attention to south-south and south-north exchanges, and to the recent transition experiences of middle income countries.Publication Europe and Central Asia Economic Update, Fall 2024: Better Education for Stronger Growth(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-10-17)Economic growth in Europe and Central Asia (ECA) is likely to moderate from 3.5 percent in 2023 to 3.3 percent this year. This is significantly weaker than the 4.1 percent average growth in 2000-19. Growth this year is driven by expansionary fiscal policies and strong private consumption. External demand is less favorable because of weak economic expansion in major trading partners, like the European Union. Growth is likely to slow further in 2025, mostly because of the easing of expansion in the Russian Federation and Turkiye. This Europe and Central Asia Economic Update calls for a major overhaul of education systems across the region, particularly higher education, to unleash the talent needed to reinvigorate growth and boost convergence with high-income countries. Universities in the region suffer from poor management, outdated curricula, and inadequate funding and infrastructure. A mismatch between graduates' skills and the skills employers are seeking leads to wasted potential and contributes to the region's brain drain. Reversing the decline in the quality of education will require prioritizing improvements in teacher training, updated curricula, and investment in educational infrastructure. In higher education, reforms are needed to consolidate university systems, integrate them with research centers, and provide reskilling opportunities for adult workers.Publication Doing Business 2014 : Understanding Regulations for Small and Medium-Size Enterprises(Washington, DC: World Bank Group, 2013-10-28)Eleventh in a series of annual reports comparing business regulation in 185 economies, Doing Business 2014 measures regulations affecting 11 areas of everyday business activity: Starting a business, Dealing with construction permits, Getting electricity, Registering property, Getting credit, Protecting investors, Paying taxes, Trading across borders, Enforcing contracts, Closing a business, Employing workers. The report updates all indicators as of June 1, 2013, ranks economies on their overall “ease of doing business”, and analyzes reforms to business regulation – identifying which economies are strengthening their business environment the most. The Doing Business reports illustrate how reforms in business regulations are being used to analyze economic outcomes for domestic entrepreneurs and for the wider economy. Doing Business is a flagship product by the World Bank and IFC that garners worldwide attention on regulatory barriers to entrepreneurship. More than 60 economies use the Doing Business indicators to shape reform agendas and monitor improvements on the ground. In addition, the Doing Business data has generated over 870 articles in peer-reviewed academic journals since its inception.