Gender Pay Gaps in the Former Soviet Union: A Review of the Evidence

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in January 2018The Levy Economics Institute Working Paper Collection presents research in progress by Levy Institute scholars and conference participants. The purpose of the series is to disseminate ideas to and elicit comments from academics and professionals.Levy Economics Institute of Bard College, founded in 1986, is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, independently funded research organization devoted to public service. Through scholarship and economic research it generates viable, effective public policy responses to important economic problems that profoundly affect the quality of life in the United States and abroad. ABSTRACTThe goal of this paper is to examine the patterns and movements of the gender pay gaps in the countries of the former Soviet Union (FSU) and to place them in the context of advanced economies. We survey over 30 publications and conduct a meta-analysis of this literature.Gender pay gaps in the region are considerable and above the levels observed in advanced economies. Similar to advanced economies, industrial and occupational segregation widens the gaps in the FSU countries, whereas gender differences in educational attainment tend to shrink them. However, a much higher proportion of the gaps remain unexplained, pointing toward the role of unobserved gender differences related to actual and perceived productivity. Over the last 25 years, the gaps contracted in most FSU countries, primarily due to the reduction in the unexplained portion. Underlying the contraction at the mean are different movements in the gap across the pay distribution. Although the glass-ceiling effect has diminished in some FSU countries, it has persisted in others. We investigate the reasons underlying these findings and argue that the developments in the FSU region shed new light on our understanding of the gender pay gaps.

The gender wage gap in Mongolia: Sectoral segregation as a driving factor

“…The size of the gender wage gap varies greatly in the transition countries. The raw gender wage gaps in the FSU countries are within a range of 30.0% and 70.0% and are consistently larger than those of the industrialized countries (Khitarishvili, 2019). On the contrary, the gender pay gaps in Eastern European transition countries, China, Vietnam, and Mongolia, are lower than those in FSU countries and comparable to those of industrialized countries (Brainerd, 2000; Chen et al, 2013; Pastore, 2010a; Pham & Reilly, 2007).…”

“…In comparison with transition literature, our study finds that the magnitudes of log wage gaps, at the mean and across quantiles, are much smaller for Mongolia as compared to FSU countries. The average wage gaps for the FSU countries in Khitarishvili (2019) were between 27% and 76%. Our study reveals an average log monthly wage gap of 18.3% and an average log hourly wage gap of 8.6% in 2018.…”

“…On the contrary, the gender pay gaps in Eastern European transition countries, China, Vietnam, and Mongolia, are lower than those in FSU countries and comparable to those of industrialized countries (Brainerd, 2000; Chen et al, 2013; Pastore, 2010a; Pham & Reilly, 2007). A large share of the gap in the transition countries is unexplained, and the evidence on the changes in the gap is mixed (Brainerd, 2000; Khitarishvili, 2019; Sattar, 2012).…”

Motherhood and the Allocation of Talent

“…As Figure 3 shows, there is a strong negative correlation between the motherhood effects on the different labor market outcomes estimated above, suggesting that all these employment responses to motherhood may share common drivers. One obvious example is given by Eastern countries, which were all part of the Soviet bloc at the time these mothers had their first baby: the small motherhood effects are very likely the result of socialist policies aimed at reaching gender equality during the Soviet era since female labor participation was considered key in the industrialization process and in the achievement of economic growth (Brainerd, 2000;Sattar, 2012;Khitarishvili, 2019). 21 We explore gender norms and family policies as two potential drivers of these motherhood effects that could explain the differential impact of motherhood across countries.…”

Are Women Really Paid More than Men in Kosovo? Unpicking the Evidence

“…Many of the previously transitioning countries of Central and Eastern Europe typically had large gender wage gaps but also low female employment rates, though the latter have generally increased since 2010 (Kunze 2018). In these countries a relatively small proportion of the gender wage gap could be explained by the different characteristics of female and male employees (Redmond and McGuinness 2017;Khitarishvili 2019).…”