An Evaluation of the Gender Wage Gap using Linked Census and Administrative Records
Posted: 1/17/2020 (CSDE Seminar Series)
This Friday, Thomas B. (Brad) Foster from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Center for Economic Studies will present his research on the gender gap in earnings by linking individuals’ responses to Census Bureau surveys (like the ACS and CPS) with their W-2 earnings records. His research seeks to improve our measurement and understanding of the gender wage gap—explaining this gap in wages has proven difficult, particularly as women have come to “look more like men” with respect to their human capital endowments, because of limitations on publicly available data. While these data sources provide good measures of human capital, most do not allow researchers to fully account for labor force experience and occupational choice simultaneously, much less with sufficient sample sizes or precision.
Click here to schedule a meeting with Thomas
In his and his co-authors’ research, they use the linked data to decompose the gender gap in wages, providing novel estimates of the contribution of labor force participation, actual work experience, occupational choice, and occupational characteristics to overall gaps, as well as estimates of residual gender earnings gaps within detailed occupation categories. They then model residual occupation-specific wage gaps as a function of occupational characteristics—such as time pressure, schedule flexibility, and the freedom to make one’s own decisions—which prior work suggests may underlie pay discrepancies, and which may serve as valuable points for policy intervention.
Date: 01/24/2020
Time: 12:30 - 1:30 PM
Location: 121 Raitt Hall