Publication: Globalization and the Gender Wage Gap
Date
2004-04
ISSN
Published
2004-04
Author(s)
Oostendorp, Remco H.
Abstract
There are several theoretical reasons
why globalization will have a narrowing as well as widening
effect on the gender wage gap, but little is known about the
actual impact, except for a number of country studies. The
author provides a cross-country study of the impact of
globalization on the occupational gender wage gap, based on
the rarely used but most far-ranging survey of wages around
the world, the International Labour Organization's
October Inquiry. This annual survey was started in 1924 and
contains a wealth of information on wages and the gender
wage gap. For the period 1983-99, there is information on
the gender wage gap in 161 narrowly defined occupations in
more than 80 countries around the world. The author finds
the following: (i) The occupational gender wage gap appears
to be narrowing with increases in GDP per capita; (ii) There
is a significantly narrowing impact of trade and foreign
direct investment (FDI) net inflows on the occupational
gender wage gap for low-skill occupations, both in poorer
and richer countries, and for high-skill occupations in
richer countries; (iii) There is no evidence of a narrowing
impact of trade, but there is evidence of a widening impact
of FDI net inflows on the high-skill occupational gender
wage gap in poorer countries; (iv) Wage-setting institutions
have a strong impact on the occupational gender wage gap in
richer countries.
Citation
“Oostendorp, Remco H.. 2004. Globalization and the Gender Wage Gap. Policy Research Working Paper;No. 3256. © World Bank, Washington, DC. http://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/13887 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
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