Gender gap in the desired wages: Evidence from large administrative data

TL;DR

This paper investigates the gender gap in desired wages using large administrative data, highlighting the significant role of occupation choice and residual factors in wage disparities.

Contribution

It provides a detailed decomposition of gender differences in desired wages, emphasizing the importance of occupation and residual unexplained factors.

Findings

Desired occupation is the main factor in wage differences.

Residual factors account for a large portion of unexplained gender gap.

Heterogeneity and sensitivity analyses reveal complex influences on desired wages.

Abstract

This study analyzes the gender gap in desired wages using large administrative data of public job referrals, which allows us to look at the desired salaries of individuals from a wider wage distribution. We conduct a decomposition analysis using available information on age, desired work region, and desired occupation. We find that of the three factors, desired occupation is the most important in generating differences in desired wages; however, the residuals are the largest outside of the three factors. To further probe the unexplained residuals, we also conduct heterogeneity and sensitivity analyses using the available data.