Publication: Changes in Wage Distributions, Wage Gaps and Wage Inequality by Gender in Kenya
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Date
2009
ISSN
09638024
Published
2009
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Using data from Kenya, the determinants of gender differences in the overall distribution of earnings are estimated as part of explaining the positive association between the return to measured and unmeasured human capital attributes as formalised by human capital theory (Mincer in 'Schooling Experience, and Earnings', New York: National Bureau of Economic Research, Columbia University Press, 1974). The Kenyan data allows us to demonstrate that males possess relatively more human capital, and once gender differences in measured and unmeasured skills are accounted for, males receive relatively higher returns to both their measured and unmeasured human capital attributes. These findings support the notion that gender differences in the return to human capital trigger male and female earnings differences in Kenya.
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Publication Sources of the Persistent Gender Wage Gap along the Unconditional Earnings Distribution : Findings from Kenya(Taylor and Francis, 2013-03-12)Past studies on gender wage inequality in Africa typically attribute the gender pay gap either to gender differences in characteristics or in the return to characteristics. The authors suggest, however, that this understanding of the two sources may be far too general and possibly overlook the underlying covariates that drive the gender wage gap. Moreover, past studies focus on the gender wage gap exclusively at the conditional mean. The authors go further to evaluate the partial contribution of each wage-determining covariate to the magnitude of the gender pay gap along the unconditional earnings distribution. The authors' data are from Kenya, and their empirical technique mirrors re-centered influence function regressions. The authors' results are novel and suggest that while gender differences in characteristics and the return to characteristics widen the gender pay gap at the lower end of the wage distributions, gender differences in characteristics widen the gender wage gap at the upper end of the wage distributions. Importantly, the authors find that the underlying covariates driving gender differences in characteristics and the return to characteristics are the industry, occupation, higher education and region covariates. 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Minimum wage increases were thus associated with exacerbated gender pay gaps among the least educated, and reduced gender gaps among the best educated production workers. Unconditional quantile regression analysis attests to wage compression and lighthouse effects. Changes in relative employment prospects were limited.Publication Foreign Wage Premium, Gender and Education : Insights from Vietnam Household Surveys(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-04)This paper investigates the differential impacts of foreign ownership on wages for different types of workers (in terms of educational background and gender) in Vietnam using the Vietnam Household Living Standards Surveys of 2002 and 2004. Whereas most previous studies have compared wage levels between foreign and domestic sectors using firm-level data (thus excluding the informal sector), one advantage of using the Living Standards Surveys in this paper is that the data allow wage comparison analyses to extend to the informal wage sector. A series of Mincerian earnings equations and worker-specific fixed effects models are estimated. Several findings emerge. First, foreign firms pay higher wages relative to their domestic counterparts after controlling for workers personal characteristics. Second, the higher the individual workers' levels of education, the larger on average are the wage premiums for those who work for foreign firms. Third, longer hours of work in foreign firm jobs relative to working in the informal wage sector are an important component of the wage premium. 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The gap in labor supply rises from almost zero to about 20 percent during the years from 19 to 22, while the gap in hours worked falls from positive (up to six hours per week more than their male counterparts) to negative (up to five hours per week less) over the same period in the life cycle. When decomposing the gap at different deciles of the wage distribution, it appears that most of it is at the lower and upper ends of the distribution, among young adults and prime-age workers. Selection of women into employment is strong and strongly skill-based: when controlling for sample selection bias, the gender gap becomes positive.Publication A Note on Schooling and Wage Inequality in the Public and Private Sector(2009)The few studies that have examined the wage impact of education across the earning distribution have focused on high-income countries and show education to be more profitable at the top of the distribution. The implication is that education may increase inequality. Extending the analysis to 16 East Asian and Latin American countries, in Latin America we observe a pattern similar to that of Europe/North America (increasing wage effects), while in East Asia the wage effects are predominantly decreasing by earnings quantile. However, once the analysis is performed separately for the public and the private sector, it is revealed that the strongly decreasing impact of schooling on earnings in the public sectors of East Asian countries is responsible for the overall observed decreasing pattern, while the impact of schooling on earnings in the private sectors of these countries is non-decreasing.
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