Gender pension gaps along the distribution: An application to the French case

Abstract

In this article we estimate the relative contributions to the gender pension gap of career duration and income earned at different points along the pension income distribution, as well as the role played by minimum pensions and other partly or wholly non-contributory policies in reducing this gap. Our research covers all retirees in France in 2012 employed in the public or private sector at least once in their lifetimes. We first highlight that at every point in the distribution, the gender pension gap is wider for private-sector retirees than for those in the public sector. This is because public sector careers are less fragmented and because the calculation of the public sector reference wage does not penalize career interruptions so heavily. This relative advantage of women in the public sector is probably an additional factor explaining their over-representation in this sector. Applying the decomposition method proposed by Firpo et al. (2007, 2009), we show that composition differences in the gender pension gap are essentially due to differences in contribution periods and wages, with a smaller effect of career duration in the public sector than in the private. In the first deciles, the gap can be attributed largely to differences in career duration. This effect gradually weakens, and differences in the reference wage become the main explanation. We also show that minimum contributory pensions play an extremely important role in limiting the gender pension gap in the first deciles, essentially in the private sector. Last, we show that in all cases the unexplained share of the pension gap is substantial only at the bottom of the distribution and, to a lesser extent, in the top decile. The unexplained share is generally smaller than the explained one and favours men.

Gender, Financial Literacy and Pension Savings*

“…(2020), Bonnet et al . (2022) using French administrative data (for 2012) also show that gender differences in wage levels and contribution periods predominantly drive the gender gap in retirees' pensions. Their distributional analysis by sector (private and public) points to particularly pronounced gender gaps in pensions at the bottom of the distribution of private sector pensions.…”

Wealth Accumulation and the Gender Wealth Gap Across Couples’ Legal Statuses and Matrimonial Property Regimes in France

“…Using German data, Cordova et al (2022) show that the gender wealth gap is reduced when pension is added. Addind pension wealth should increase the gender wealth gap in France, as the gender pension gap has been found to be substantive at every point in the distribution (Bonnet et al, 2020). Forth, we control for a rather limited number of employment characteristics-employment status and self-employment status of partners.…”

Differences in gender pension gaps in public and private pensions in West Germany: what role do work-family life courses play?

“…The standard approach in the literature analyses the GPG directly by decomposing it into a part that is due to differences in endowments with characteristics (e.g., most commonly years spent in full-time employment) and a part that is due to different returns for the same characteristic (e.g. Even and Macpherson 2004;Bardasi and Jenkins 2010;Bonnet et al 2020). In line with the international literature, all decomposition studies in Germany found that the difference in years men and women have been full-time employed is the main reason for the GPG (Frommert and Strauß 2013;Hänisch and Klos 2014;Cordova et al 2022).…”