在台灣勞動市場中，性別薪資差異一直都存在著。在 2015 年，女性勞工平均薪資大約為男性平均薪資的 85.57%，這個比率在過去 20 年間一直不斷上升，顯示出性別薪資差異逐年地縮小。而在解釋性別薪資差異大小的變數中，產業是其中一個很重要的解釋變數，因此本研究利用台灣主計處的人力運用調查資料，檢驗產業間性別薪資差異與產業特性之間的關連。實證結果顯示出部分產業特性確實會影響產業間性別薪資差異的大小，該產業的平均勞工年齡越大，該產業的性別薪資差異越小；工作地點在北部的比率越高， 會使得該產業的性別薪資差異越小；其他像是平均勞工任期長短 、特定職業的比率等等也會影響該產業內性別薪資差異的大小。 / In Taiwan, gender wage gap has existed for long in the labor market. However, proportion of average female salary to average male salary was about 85.57% in 2015 and this ratio has been growing in recent years. Besides, among all factors that can account for the gender wage gaps, industry plays an important role. Using data from the Manpower Utilization Survey, this study examines the inter-industry gender wage gaps in Taiwan with a focus on the correlation between these inter-industry gender wage gaps and characteristics of different industry sectors. The results confirm that some industrial characteristics do affect the magnitude of sex discrimination. Average age, job tenure, proportion of certain working locations and specific occupations have an impact on inter-industry gender wage gaps.

Die vorliegende Dissertation setzt sich aus drei Aufsätzen zusammen: zwei im Bereich der Arbeitsmarktökonomie und einer im Bereich der politischen Ökonomie. Der erste Aufsatz untersucht die Rolle der zunehmenden Firmenheterogenität für die Stagnation des Gender Wage Gaps auf dem westdeutschen Arbeitsmarkt in den 1990er und 2000er Jahren. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass die steigende Firmenheterogenität während dieses Zeitraums einen Rückgang des Gender Wage Gaps um 15% bzw. 3,6 Log-Prozentpunkte verhindert hat. Darüber hinaus zeigen die Analysen, dass eine zunehmende Lohnflexibilisierung, bedingt durch einen Rückgang der Tarifbindung und wachsende Dezentralisierungs- und Flexibilisierungstendenzen innerhalb der vorhandenen Tarifbindungsregime, den Anstieg der Lohnungleichheit zwischen Betrieben und folglich die Lohnungleichheit zwischen Männern und Frauen verstärkt hat. Der zweite Aufsatz untersucht die Auswirkungen des Anfang der 1990er Jahre von Flüchtlingsmigranten verursachten, plötzlichen Anstiegs des Arbeitskräfteangebots auf Löhne und Beschäftigung der einheimischen Arbeitnehmer. Die empirischen Analysen zeigen, dass ein 1%iger Zuwachs in der Beschäftigung von Migranten mit einer Reduzierung des lokalen Lohn- und Beschäftigungswachstums in den betroffenen Regionen um durchschnittlich etwa 0,68 bzw. 1,13% einhergeht; auf längere Sicht zeigen sich indes keine negativen Auswirkungen. Zwei Drittel des lokalen Beschäftigungsrückgangs werden durch entsprechende Beschäftigungsgewinne in solchen Regionen kompensiert, die von der Flüchtlingszuwanderung nicht betroffen sind. Die Unterschiede zwischen kurz- und langfristigen Konsequenzen sowie die Umverteilung der Beschäftigung zwischen Regionen sind für die politische Evaluation der Vor- und Nachteile von Migration von Bedeutung. Der dritte Aufsatz untersucht, ob die Parteienlandschaft im Gemeinderat einen Effekt auf die Struktur von Gemeindezusammenlegungen hat, indem sie die Wahrscheinlichkeit der Wiederwahl und folglich des Machterhalts der im Amt befindlichen politischen Entscheidungsträger beeinflusst. Die empirischen Ergebnisse deuten darauf hin, dass die Parteienstruktur für die Realisierung von Gemeindezusammenlegungen von Bedeutung ist. / This dissertation is composed of three essays: two in the field of labour economics and one in political economics. The first essay studies the role of growing workplace heterogeneity for the stagnation of the gender pay gap on the West German labour market during the 1990s and 2000s. The analysis shows that the expansion of workplace-specific wage premiums over that time period prevented the gender wage gap from narrowing by around 15% or 3.6 log points. This effect is not driven by a relocation of men and women across high and low wage firms, but is entirely attributable to a widening in the distribution of wage premiums. The study further shows that rising wage flexibilisation, facilitated by deunionisation and decentralisation tendencies within unions, has led to higher rent-sharing elasticities, and thereby catalysed the role of workplace heterogeneity for overall inequality and the wage gap between genders. The second essay investigates the impact of a refugee-driven labour supply shock on native wages and employment. By exploiting a large and unexpected refugee wave hitting the West German labour market between 1988 and 1993, the analysis shows that an increase in local immigrant employment by 1% reduces native wages and employment by about 0.68 and 1.13%, respectively; in the longer perspective, however, these negative effects disappear. The study also shows that about two-thirds of the local employment decline is compensated by corresponding employment gains in regions not affected by immigration. Both findings—the difference between short and long run effects and the redistribution of native employment across regions — are important for the political evaluation of immigration. The third essay investigates the political determinants of municipality amalgamations. By exploiting a boundary reform in the state of Brandenburg, which reduced the number of municipalities by about 70%, the study asks whether party representation in the town council influences the structure of municipality mergers by affecting the political decision makers’ probability to remain in power. The empirical estimates suggest that political representation matters for the structure of mergers that materialise.

Submitted by Murilo Esteves de Santi (murilo_es@hotmail.com) on 2016-07-12T17:47:22Z No. of bitstreams: 1 biblioteca.pdf: 575242 bytes, checksum: a061c3686ed763a0e9468ec7a8c130a0 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by GILSON ROCHA MIRANDA (gilson.miranda@fgv.br) on 2016-11-29T11:40:40Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 biblioteca.pdf: 575242 bytes, checksum: a061c3686ed763a0e9468ec7a8c130a0 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Maria Almeida (maria.socorro@fgv.br) on 2016-12-06T13:22:08Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 biblioteca.pdf: 575242 bytes, checksum: a061c3686ed763a0e9468ec7a8c130a0 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-12-06T13:23:59Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 biblioteca.pdf: 575242 bytes, checksum: a061c3686ed763a0e9468ec7a8c130a0 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016 / I study the impact of the changes in the U.S. labor market that took place in the last few decades - such as the increase in the college wage premium and the reduction in the gender wage gap - on the intergenerational persistence of income, with a particular emphasis on the marriage market channel. To motivate my analysis, I document a positive cross-country correlation between intergenerational persistence of income (and education) and educational assortative mating. I then develop an overlapping generations model in which parents invest in their children's education and individuals choose whom they are going to marry, and estimate the model to fit the postwar U.S. data. My results suggest that both of these changes have affected the intergenerational earnings persistence, but that the marriage decision plays only a very small role in these results.

Das Thema dieser Arbeit ist die Heterogenität der Arbeitsmarktresultate über den Lebenszyklus und über die Geschlechter hinweg. Die Dissertation besteht aus drei unabhängigen Forschungsarbeiten (Kapitel 2-4), die sich auf komplementäre Aspekte der übergeordneten Forschungsfrage konzentrieren: Wie bestimmen Erwerbsentscheidungen das Einkommen und welche Rolle spielt die Geschlechtskomponente? Kapitel 1 führt in das Thema Lohn- und Geschlechtergefälle ein und wie diese mit Erwerbsentscheidungen zusammenhängen. Kapitel 2 analysiert Daten des Deutschen Sozio-oekonomischen Panels und der Innovationsstichprobe des Panels und untersucht die Rolle von verzerrten Erwartungen. Es setzt falsche Vorstellungen über die Arbeitsmarktvergütung von Teilzeitarbeitsjahren mit der Neigung von Frauen zur Teilnahme an Teilzeitbeschäftigung und den daraus resultierenden Einkommensverlusten aus der Beschäftigung in Beziehung. Kapitel 3 fügt die Dimension der Karriereentwicklung hinzu. Es zeigt auf, dass Arbeitserfahrung in Teilzeitbeschäftigung im Vergleich zu Vollzeitbeschäftigung mit geringeren Aufstiegsschancen einhergeht, und dass Beförderungen wichtige Quellen für Lohnsteigerungen sind. Zusammengenommen zeigt die Analyse, dass geringere Löhne durch Teilzeiterfahrung zwei Hauptkomponenten haben – einen erschwerten Karriereaufstieg in höher bezahlte Karrierestufen und ein stagnierendes Lohnwachstum unabhängig von der Karrierestufe. Das letzte Kapitel ergänzt die Diskussion über Lösungen für eine seit langem bestehende Herausforderung in der empirischen Arbeitsökonomie - die Selektionsverzerrung bei Löhnen. Es steuert einen neuartigen nicht-parametrischen Schätzer der von Selektionseffekten bereinigten kumulativen Verteilungslohnfunktion bei. In diesem Kapitel wird anhand von administrativen Daten aus Deutschland gezeigt, wie der Schätzer zur Schätzung einer selektionskorrigierten Verteilung der geschlechtsspezifischen Lohnunterschiede eingesetzt werden kann. / The topic of this thesis is the heterogeneity in labor market outcomes over the life cycle and across gender. The thesis comprises three independent research papers (Chapters 2-4), which focus on complementary aspects of the overreaching research question: how do employment choices determine earnings, and what role does the gender component play? Chapter 1 introduces the topic of wage and gender gaps and how these stand related to employment choices. Chapter 2 analyzes data from the German Socio-Economic Panel and the Panel's Innovation Sample and investigates the role of biases in beliefs. It relates misperceptions about the labor market remuneration of years spent working part-time to the women's propensity to engage in part-time employment and the consequent earnings losses. Chapter 3 adds the dimension of career development. It posits that part-time penalties in experience accumulation decrease the chances of being promoted and that promotions are important sources of wage growth. In sum, the analysis shows that part-time wage penalties have two key components - hampered career progression to higher-paying career levels and stagnating wage growth regardless of career level. The final chapter adds to the discussion on solutions to a longstanding challenge in empirical labor economics posed by the selection bias in wages observed by econometricians. It contributes a novel non-parametric estimator of the selection-free cumulative distribution wage function. This chapter leverages administrative data records from Germany to show how the estimator can be applied in estimating a selection-corrected distribution of gender wage gaps.

In order to assess the continuing imbalance of top executives between genders, I examine the effects of gender diversity within top management teams on firm risk, performance, and executive compensation. Capitalizing on previous analysis, I apply three unique differentiators. First, I utilize current data from 2012 to 2017 from Compustat, CRSP, and ExecuComp. Second, I provide a unique subset view on a firm and individual performance of female CEOs to examine executive compensation. Third, my scope of analysis expands to S&P Composite 1500 companies. I use separate models to estimate the effect of gender diversity on firm risk by examining a firm’s beta and standard deviation of daily returns, on firm performance by examining a firm’s Tobin’sQ, and lastly on executive compensation by examining an executive’s natural logarithm of total compensation. My findings suggest gender diversity among executives appears to have an immaterial effect on a firm’s risk and performance. In turn, I also find that female executives continue to receive less compensation than their male colleagues. However, I find an average female CEO receives a higher level of compensation than an average male CEO. Lastly, I find as gender diversity increases among executives, specifically CEOs, the compensation differences between genders decreases.

Cette thèse explore la dimension géographique des disparités entre les sexes dans le marché du travail. Les questions étudiées incluent la variation de la prime salariale urbaine entre les sexes (chapitre deux), l'exploration des différents mécanismes derrière les effets importants de la localisation géographique sur les gains du marché du travail des femmes (chapitre trois), et de l'écart entre les sexes sur les rendements d'expérience urbains (chapitre quatre). Le deuxième chapitre entreprend une analyse transversale à l'aide de données françaises pour estimer la prime salariale urbaine et sa variation entre les sexes. Les résultats confirment l'existence d'une prime salariale urbaine nettement supérieure pour les femmes. Un doublement de la densité de l'emploi dans une zone donnée entraîne une réduction de 2,4 pourcent de l'écart salarial entre les sexes, une valeur qui augmente de 4 pourcent lorsqu'on exclut la catégorie professionnelle des ouvriers. Contrairement au reste des professions, l'effet de la densité favorise les hommes dans la catégorie des ouvriers. Le troisième chapitre cherche à trouver les mécanismes à l'origine de l'effet importante de la localisation géographique sur les gains du marché du travail pour les femmes en employant l'approche par l'estimateur « within ». Les résultats suggèrent que la moitié de la prime salariale urbaine est attribuée sur la base d'un tri des travailleurs selon le type de compétences à travers des différentes zones. Cependant, en complément du tri de compétences, d'autres hétérogénéités individuelles contribuent également à l'excès de la prime salariale urbaine pour les femmes. / This dissertation explores the geographical dimension of the gender gaps in the labor market. The investigated issues include the variation of urban wage premium across genders (chapter two), exploration of different mechanisms behind stronger location effects for females' labor market gains (chapter three), and the gender gap in the urban returns to experience (chapter four). The second chapter undertakes a cross-sectional analysis by using French data to estimate the urban wage premium and its variation across genders. The findings confirm the existence of an urban wage premium that is significantly higher for women. A twofold increase in employment density of an area results in a 2.4 percent reduction in the gender wage gap, which increases to 4 percent when we exclude manual workers occupational category. Contrary to the rest of the occupations, the density effect favors men in the manual workers category. The third chapter seeks to find the mechanisms behind the stronger location effects on labor market gains for women by employing the within estimate approach. Results suggest that half of the urban wage premium is contributed by the sorting of workers according to skill type across different areas. However, in addition to skill sorting other individual heterogeneities also contribute to the excess urban wage premium for females. Firm level agglomeration effects attribute a minor part to the excess urban wage premium for females. The left over premium is a result of pure urban effects (lower discrimination, better matching, urban amenities).

Diese Dissertation besteht aus drei Aufsätzen, welche die sozio-ökonomische Konsequenzen der Verwicklung in Konflikte untersuchen. Der erste Artikel untersucht den Einfluss der “Operation Iraqi Freedom” und des folgenden Bürgerkrieges auf die Beschulung von irakischen Kindern im schulpflichtigen Alter. Einen Schwerpunkt der Studie bildet die Überwindung eines Endogenitätsproblems, welches sich durch nicht-zufällige Verwicklung in Gewalt ergibt. Die Ergebnisse der Studie zeigen, dass in Abhängigkeit von der Intensität des Konfliktes die Schuleinschreibung von Mädchen durch eine Verwicklung in Konflikte zwischen sechs bis zwölf Prozent reduziert wird. Der bei Jungen gemessene Effekt beläuft sich auf eine Reduzierung um ein bis neun Prozent. Im zweiten Artikel werden Lohnzuschläge von hochqualifizierten palästinensischen Arbeitskräften in Zusammenhang mit alternierender Intensität im Nahostkonflikt gestellt. Mit dem Ausbruch der Zweiten Intifada im Jahr 2000 führen erhöhte Grenzkontrollen zu eingeschränkte Mobilität. Dadurch gewinnt Der Dienstleistungssektor in den Besetzten Gebieten an relativer Bedeutung. Dieser beschäftigt anteilig mehr hochqualifizierte Arbeitskräfte als andere Sektoren, was den Anstieg ihrer relativen Löhne erklärt. Im dritten Artikel wird die Entwicklung des Geschlechterlohndifferentials in den Palästinensischen Gebieten untersucht. Während der Lohnunterschied zwischen Mann und Frau bis 1999 ansteigt, lässt sich mit dem Ausbruch der Zweiten Intifada die Umkehrung dieses Trends verzeichnen. Die Verlagerung der palästinensischen Beschäftigung aus Israel in den lokalen Arbeitsmarkt erklärt dabei 57,8 Prozent der schrumpfenden Lohnlücke. Die dadurch veränderte Industriestruktur macht weitere 26,5 Prozent der Lohnkonvergenz aus. Die veränderte Beschäftigung zugunsten der Agrar- und Dienstleistungssektoren, welche sich beide durch einen hohen Anteil an Arbeiterinnen auszeichnen, führt zu einem Anstieg ihrer relativen Löhne. / This thesis consists of three essays that analyze the socio-economic consequences of conflict involvement. The first essay studies the effect of the Operation Iraqi Freedom and the following civil war on schooling outcomes of Iraqi children in mandatory schooling age. Several conflict measures which vary over geographic regions are proposed to capture different traits of conflict involvement. A special focus is laid on overcoming the potential endogeneity arising from non-random involvement into conflicts. I find decreased school enrollment of six-year-old boys and girls. Depending on the intensity of the conflict enrollment of girls is reduced by six to twelve percent. The detrimental effect measured for boys ranges between one and nine percent. The second essay examines wage differentials of high-skilled workers in relation to relaxing and tightening conflict intensity in the Israeli-Palestinian case. After the outbreak of the Second Intifada in 2000 the relative wage of skilled workers experiences a substantial increase. Regional employment shifts coming along with a change in the sector composition are responsible for a higher skill-intensive labor employment which translates into higher relative wages for skilled workers. The third essay explores the evolution of the gender wage gap in the Palestinian Territories. While the male-female wage differential increases till 1999, this trend is reversed with the outbreak of the Second Intifada. The catch-up of the female wages is mainly driven by relative employment shifts across workplaces and sectors. The shift of employment in Israel to the local labor market explains 57.8 percent of the closing wage gap between men and women. The related change in the industry structure explains another 26.5 percent of the wage convergence. I find relative gains of the service and agricultural sectors located in the Palestinian Territories, both of which rely on high shares of female labor input.

This thesis focuses on the industry wage differentials, rent-sharing and the gender wage gap. I empirically investigate: i) the interaction between inter-industry wage differentials and the gender wage gap in six European countries, ii) how rent sharing interacts with the gender wage gap in the Belgian private sector and iii) the existence of inter-industry wage differentials in Belgium, through the unobserved ability hypothesis.<p><p>The first chapter is devoted to the analysis of the interaction between inter-industry wage differentials and the gender wage gap in six European countries, i.e. Belgium, Denmark, Ireland, Italy, Spain, and the U.K. To do so, we have relied on a unique harmonised matched employer-employee data set, the 1995 European Structure of Earnings Survey. As far as we know, this paper is the first to analyse with recent techniques, on a comparable basis, and from a European perspective: i) inter-industry wage differentials by gender, ii) gender wage gaps by industry, and iii) the contribution of industry effects to the overall gender wage gap. It is also one of the few, besides Kahn (1998), to analyse for both sexes the relationship between collective bargaining characteristics and the dispersion of industry wage differentials. <p>Empirical findings show that, in all countries and for both sexes, wage differentials exist between workers employed in different sectors, even when controlling for working conditions, individual and firm characteristics. We also find that the hierarchy of sectors in terms of wages is quite similar for male and female workers and across countries. Yet, the apparent similarity between male and female industry wage differentials is challenged by standard statistical tests. Indeed, simple t-tests show that between 43 and 71% of the industry wage disparities are significantly different for women and men. Moreover, Chow tests indicate that sectoral wage differentials are significantly different as a group for both sexes in all countries. Regarding the dispersion of the industry wage differentials, we find that results vary for men and women, although not systematically nor substantially. Yet, the dispersion of industry wage differentials fluctuates considerably across countries. It is quite large in Ireland, Italy and the U.K. and relatively moderate in Belgium, Denmark and Spain. For both sexes, results point to the existence of a negative and significant relationship between the degree of centralisation of collective bargaining and the dispersion of industry wage differentials.<p>Furthermore, independently of the country considered, results show that more than 80% of the gender wage gaps within industries are statistically significant. The average industry gender wage gap ranges between -.18 in the U.K. and -.11 in Belgium. This means that on average women have an inter-industry wage differential of between 18 and 11% below that for men. Yet, correlation coefficients between the industry gender wage gaps across countries are relatively small and often statistically insignificant. This finding suggests that industries with the highest and the lowest gender wage gaps vary substantially across Europe.<p>Finally, results indicate that the overall gender wage gap, measured as the difference between the mean log wages of male and female workers, fluctuates between .18 in Denmark and .39 in the U.K. In all countries a significant (at the .01 level) part of this gap can be explained by the segregation of women in lower paying industries. Yet, the relative contribution of this factor to the gender wage gap varies substantially among European countries. It is close to zero in Belgium and Denmark, between 7 and 8% in Ireland, Spain and the U.K. and around 16% in Italy. Differences in industry wage premia for male and female workers significantly (at the .05 level) affect the gender wage gap in Denmark and Ireland only. In these countries, gender differences in industry wage differentials account for respectively 14 and 20% of the gender wage gap. To sum up, findings show that combined industry effects explain around 29% of the gender wage gap in Ireland, respectively 14 and 16% in Denmark and Italy, around 7% in the U.K. and almost nothing in Belgium and Spain. <p>In conclusion, our results emphasize that the magnitude of the gender wage gap as well as its causes vary substantially among the European countries. This suggests that no single policy instrument will be sufficient to tackle gender pay inequalities in Europe. Our findings indicate that policies need to be tailored to the very specific context of the labour market in each country.<p><p>The second chapter examines investigates how rent sharing interacts with the gender wage gap in the Belgian private sector. Empirical findings show that individual gross hourly wages are significantly and positively related to firm profits-per-employee even when controlling for group effects in the residuals, individual and firm characteristics, industry wage differentials and endogeneity of profits. Our instrumented wage-profit elasticity is of the magnitude 0.06 and it is not significantly different for men and women. Of the overall gender wage gap (on average women earn 23.7% less than men), results show that around 14% can be explained by the fact that on average women are employed in firms where profits-per-employee are lower. Thus, findings suggest that a substantial part of the gender wage gap is attributable to the segregation of women is less profitable firms. <p><p>The third and final chapter contributes to the understanding of inter-industry wage differentials in Belgium, taking advantage of access to a unique matched employer-employee data set covering the period 1995-2002. Findings show the existence of large and persistent wage differentials among workers with the same observed characteristics and working conditions, employed in different sectors. The unobserved ability hypothesis may not be rejected on the basis of Martins’ (2004) methodology. However, its contribution to the observed industry wage differentials appears to be limited. Further results show that ceteris paribus workers earn significantly higher wages when employed in more profitable firms. The instrumented wage-profit elasticity stands at 0.063. This rent-sharing phenomenon accounts for a large fraction of the industry wage differentials. We find indeed that the magnitude, dispersion and significance of industry wage differentials decreases sharply when controlling for profits.<p> / Doctorat en Sciences économiques et de gestion / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

In the first chapter of this thesis, we investigate the impact of human capital and wage structure on the gender pay in a panel of European countries using a newly available and appropriate database for cross-country comparisons and a comparable methodology for each country. <p><p>Our first question is :What role do certain individual characteristics and choices of working men and women play in shaping the cross-country differences in the gender pay gap? What is the exact size of the gender pay gap using the “more appropriate” database available for our purpose? Giving that there are mainly only two harmonized data-sets for comparing gender pay gap throughout Europe: the European Community Household Panel (ECHP) and the European Structure of Earning Survey (ESES). Each database having its shortages: the main weakness of the ECHP is the lack of perfect reliability of the data in general and of wages in particular. However the main advantage of this database is the panel-data dimension and the information on both households and individuals. The data of the ESES is, on the contrary, of a very high standard but it only covers the private sector and has a cross-sectional dimension. Furthermore only few countries are currently available :Denmark, Belgium, Spain, Ireland and Italy. <p>We use the European Structure of Earning Survey (ESES) to analyse international differences in gender pay gaps in the private sector based on a sample of five European economies: Belgium, Denmark, Ireland, Italy and Spain. Using different methods, we examine how wage structures, differences in the distribution of measured characteristics and occupational segregation contribute to and explain the pattern of international differences. Furthermore, we take account of the fact that indirect discrimination may influence female occupational distributions. We find these latter factors to have a significant impact on gender wage differentials. However, the magnitude of their effect varies across countries.<p><p>In the second chapter, we analyse the persistence of the gender pay differentials over time in Europe and better test the productivity hypothesis by taking into account unobserved heterogeneity. <p><p>Our second question is :What is the evolution of the pay differential between men and women over a period of time in Europe? And what is the impact of unobserved heterogeneity? <p>The researcher here provides evidence on the effects of unobserved individual heterogeneity on estimated gender pay differentials. Using the European Community Household Panel (ECHP), we present a cross-country comparison of the evolution of unadjusted and adjusted gender pay gaps using both cross-section and panel-data estimation techniques. The analysed countries differ greatly with respect to labour market legislation, bargaining practices structure of earnings and female employment rates. On adjusting for unobserved heterogeneity, we find a narrowed male-female pay differential, as well as significantly different rates of return on individual characteristics. In particularly, the adjusted wage differential decreases by 7 per cent in Belgium, 14 per cent in Ireland, between 20-30 per cent Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain and of 41 per cent and 54 per cent in the UK and in Denmark respectively. <p><p>In the third chapter, we investigate causes of the gender pay gap beyond the gender differences in observed and unobserved productive characteristics or simply the sex. Explanations of the gender pay gap may be the penalty women face for having children. Obviously, the motherhood wage penalty is relevant to larger issues of gender inequality given that most women are mothers and that childrearing remains a women’s affair. Thus, any penalty associated with motherhood but not with fatherhood affects many women and as such contributes to gender inequalities as the gender pay gap. Furthermore, the motherhood wage effect may be different along the wage distribution as women with different earnings may not be equal in recognising opportunities to reconcile their mother’s and earner’s role. This brings us to our third question. <p><p>Our third question is :What is the wage effect for mothers of young children in the household? And does it vary along the wage distribution of women?<p>This chapter provides more insight into the effect of the presence of young children on women’s wages. We use individual data from the ECHP (1996-2001) and both a generalised linear model (GLM) and quantile regression (QR) techniques to estimate the wage penalty/bonus associated with the presence of children under the age of sixteen for mothers in ten EU Member States. We also correct for potential selection bias using the Heckman (1979) correction term in the GLM (at the mean) and a selectivity correction term in the quantile regressions. To distinguish between mothers according to their age at the time of their first birth, wage estimations are carried out, separately, for mothers who had their first child before the age of 25 (‘young mothers’) and mothers who had their first child after the age of 25 (‘old mothers’). Our results suggest that on average young mothers earn less than non-mothers while old mothers obtain a gross wage bonus in all countries. These wage differentials are mainly due to differences in human capital, occupational segregation and, to a lesser extent, sectoral segregation between mothers and non-mothers. This overall impact of labour market segregation, suggests a “crowding” explanation of the family pay gap – pay differential between mothers and non-mothers. Nevertheless, the fact that we still find significant family pay gaps in some countries after we control for all variables of our model suggests that we cannot reject the “taste-based” explanation of the family gap in these countries. Our analysis of the impact of family policies on the family pay gap across countries has shown that parental leave and childcare policies tend to decrease the pay differential between non-mothers and mothers. Cash and tax benefits, on the contrary, tend to widen this pay differential. Sample selection also affects the level of the mother pay gap at the mean and throughout the wage distribution in most countries. Furthermore, we find that in most countries inter-quantile differences in pay between mothers and non-mothers are mainly due to differences in human-capital. Differences in their occupational and sectoral segregation further shape these wage differentials along the wage distribution in the UK, Germany and Portugal in our sample of young mothers and in Spain in the sample of old mothers.<p><p>In the fourth chapter, we analyse the combined effect of motherhood and the family status on women’s wage.<p> <p>Our fourth question is :Is there a lone motherhood pay gap in Europe? And does it vary along the wage distribution of mothers?<p>Substantial research has been devoted to the analysis of poverty and income gaps between households of different types. The effects of family status on wages have been studied to a lesser extent. In this chapter, we present a selectivity corrected quantile regression model for the lone motherhood pay gap – the differential in hourly wage between lone mothers and those with partners. We used harmonized data from the European Community Household Panel and present results for a panel of European countries. We found evidence of lone motherhood penalties and bonuses. In our analysis, most countries presented higher wage disparities at the top of the wage distribution rather than at the bottom or at the mean. Our results suggest that cross-country differences in the lone motherhood pay gap are mainly due to differences in observed and unobserved characteristics between partnered mothers and lone mothers, differences in sample selection and presence of young children in the household. We also investigated other explanations for these differences such as the availability and level of childcare arrangements, the provision of gender-balanced leave and the level of child benefits and tax incentives. As expected, we have found significant positive relationship between the pay gap between lone and partnered mothers and the childcare, take-up and cash and tax benefits policies. Therefore improving these family policies would reduce the raw pay gap observed. <p> / Doctorat en Sciences économiques et de gestion / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished