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Has economic progress increased the relative earnings of females to males over the long run? Evidence on trends in the earnings gap for the last four decades appears to run counter to this hypothesis. Numerous data sources are used in this paper to piece together a 170-year history of the earnings of females relative to those of males and the variables that determine earnings in the market place. In brief, the constancy of the earnings gap from the 1950s is a short-run phenomenon and cannot be extrapolated into the more distant past.The ratio of female to male earnings in the economy as a whole rosefrom just over 0.45 to just under 0.60 during 1890 to 1930. It rose to just over 0.60 by 1950 but has been virtnally stable from then, declining somewhat during the early to mid-fifties and rising after 1981. The ratio in the manufacturing sector rose from about 0.35 in 1820, to 0.50 in 1850, and to 0.58 in 1930. Advances in the labor market experience of the female working population account for 24 percent of the increase in the earnings ratio over the 1890 to 1940 period. Increases in the returns to education and, to a lesser extent, in educational attainment, account for about 40 percent of the increase from 1890 to 1970. It is also possible that the decreased return to physical attributes (such as strength) accounts for another 28 percent of the increase in the female to male earnings ratio. The various factors considered account for about 85 percent of the entire increase in the ratio from 1890 to 1970 (some factors served to decrease the ratio). The constancy of the gender gap from the 1950s is a function of the increased labor force participation of women which served to stabilize the work experience of the working population of women and to make the future lightly unpredictable for many cohorts.

Wage differentials.

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This paper examines the mobility of individuals through the wage and earnings distributions. This is of extreme importance since mobility has a direct implication for the way one views the vast changes in wage and earnings inequality in the United States over the last few decades. The measures of wage and earnings mobility analyzed are based on data for individuals surveyed in the National Longitudinal Survey for Youth from 1979 to 1991. We introduce summary measures of mobility computed over varying time horizons in order to examine how the effect on measured inequality as the time horizon is increased. The results suggest that mobility is predominantly within group mobility and increases most rapidly when the time horizon is extended up to four years, reducing wage inequality by 12-26%. We proceed therefore with more detailed examination of short-term (year-to-year) within group mobility, by estimating non-parametrically transition probabilities among quintiles of the distribution. We find that the staying probabilities, by quintiles, were higher at the higher quintiles throughout the period for both wages and earnings, and that mobility is declining over time. Hence, this paper suggests that while the level of wage inequality in the United States is somewhat lower once mobility is taken into account, the sharp increase in inequality during the 1980's is worse than it appears, due to falling mobility over time.

Wage differentials.

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Income distribution --- Wage differentials

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"The authors investigate the extent and nature of distortions in the labor market in the Republic of Cote d'Ivoire by using quantile regression analysis on employer-employee data from the manufacturing sector. They find that the labor markets in Cote d'Ivoire do not seem to be much distorted. Unions may influence employment through tenure but do not seem to influence wages directly except for vulnerable minorities that seem protected by unions. Establishment-size wage effects are pronounced and highest for white-collar workers. This may be explained by the efficiency wage theory, so that, even in the absence of unions, segmentation and inefficiencies will still be present as long as firms seek to retain their employees by paying wages above the market clearing level. The inefficiency arising from establishment-size wage effects can be mitigated by education. Furthermore, the authors find that the premium to education is highly significantly positive only for higher education, and not for basic education, indicating that educational policies should also focus on higher education. "--World Bank web site.

Labor market --- Wage differentials

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This paper proposes a method to analyze interval-censored data, using multiple imputation based on a heteroskedastic interval regression approach. The proposed model aims to obtain a synthetic data set that can be used for standard analysis, including standard linear regression, quantile regression, or poverty and inequality estimation. The paper presents two applications to show the performance of the method. First, it runs a Monte Carlo simulation to show the method's performance under the assumption of multiplicative heteroskedasticity, with and without conditional normality. Second, it uses the proposed methodology to analyze labor income data in Grenada for 2013-20, where the salary data are interval-censored according to the salary intervals prespecified in the survey questionnaire. The results obtained are consistent across both exercises.

Wages. --- Wage differentials.