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Economic Applications of Quantile Regression pp 149–167Cite as

How wide is the gap? An investigation of gender wage differences using quantile regression

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Abstract

In this paper we re-examine the link between subjective perceptions and objective measures of wage discrimination by estimating the mean and several quantiles in the conditional wage distribution of men and women in order to decompose the gender wage gap into the part attributed to different characteristics and the part attributable to differential returns to these characteristics at points other than the conditional expectation. In the process we take into account the endogeneity of educational choice and the participation decision of women. The results suggest that the absolute wage gap and the component of the latter that can be attributed to different returns to characteristics increase over the wage scale.

We thank Manuel Arellano, Richard Blundell, Adriana Kugler and seminar participants at Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Universitat de Girona, Universidad de Oviedo, the XII Jornadas de Economia Industrial and the XV Latin American Econometric Society Meeting for suggestions. We are also grateful to the editor of this journal and an anonymous referee for useful comments. Financial support from the Instituto de la Mujer, the FIES and DGES projects PB95-0980 and PB98-1058-CO3-01 is gratefully acknowledged. The usual disclaimer applies.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departament d’Economia i Empresa, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, C/Ramón Trias Fargas, 25, 08005, Barcelona, Spain

    Jaume García & Angel López-Nicolás

  2. Departamento de Fundamentos del Análisis Económico. Facultad de Economía y Empresa, Campus de Espinardo. Universidad de Murcia, 30100, Murcia, Spain

    Pedro J. Hernández

Authors
  1. Jaume García
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  2. Pedro J. Hernández
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  3. Angel López-Nicolás
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economics, University of Mannheim, 68131, Mannheim, Germany

    Bernd Fitzenberger Ph. D.

  2. Department of Economics, University of Illinois, 61820, Champaign, IL, USA

    Roger Koenker Ph. D.

  3. Faculdade de Economiay, Tr. Estevão Pinto — Campolide, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 1099-032, Lisboa, Portugal

    José A. F. Machado Ph. D.

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© 2002 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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García, J., Hernández, P.J., López-Nicolás, A. (2002). How wide is the gap? An investigation of gender wage differences using quantile regression. In: Fitzenberger, B., Koenker, R., Machado, J.A.F. (eds) Economic Applications of Quantile Regression. Studies in Empirical Economics. Physica, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-11592-3_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-11592-3_7

  • Publisher Name: Physica, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-7908-2502-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-662-11592-3

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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