Gender, the Welfare State, and Public Employment: A Comparative Study of Seven Industrialized Countries

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 A Comparative Study of Seven Industrialized Countries AbstractThis paper explores the influence of government employment on the gender gap in earnings in seven countries, using data from the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS). We raise and answer four questions about the effects of public sector employment on the gender gap in earnings. (1) Do governments offer jobs that are comparatively high paying? (2) Does public employment benefit some workers, such as low-paid workers, more than others? (3) Are public sector employment advantages explained by differences in worker characteristics and the occupational mix? (4) Finally, what is the effect of public employment --its extent and its pay structure --on gender gaps in earnings? The results indicate marked variation across liberal, conservative, and social democratic welfare states, but reveal a number of uniformities as well. We find that public-sector workers earn more, on average, than those working in the private sector in most countries in our sample, and most earnings advantages are concentrated on the lower end of the earnings distribution. Generally, a large share of the public/private earnings differential --especially in the social democratic and conservative countries --is explained by sectoral differences in worker characteristics and occupation. The effect of public employment on the overall gender gap in earnings is limited in most countries. We discuss the implications of these results for theory and research on gender and the welfare state.

The EU Gender Earnings Gap: Job Segregation and Working Time as Driving Factors

“…In all observed countries in our dataset at hand, female workers were over-represented in publicly controlled firms. This result accords with findings of Gornick and Jacobs (1998) and may be explained with attractive employment conditions the public sector offers for mothers, due to the high degrees of protection, time flexibility and tolerance towards periods of absence (Kolberg 1991). At the same time, we find in the majority of countries a higher conditional remuneration in publicly than in privately controlled firms, implying a reduction of the wage gap by 1.1 pp.…”

Top Down or Bottom Up? A Cross-National Study of Vertical Occupational Sex Segregation in Twelve European Countries

“…At the same time, if the public sector is large and absorbs considerable numbers of women, they will be concentrated in the middle of the occupational hierarchy. Gornick and Jacobs (1998) show, for example, that the earnings advantage of working in the public sector is higher for those situated at the lower end of the earnings distribution. Thus, we expect that in countries with a large percentage of women in the public sector, the percentage of women in low-wage employment will be lower (Hypothesis 3a).…”

“…This is in line with Kolberg's earlier analysis of Scandinavian countries (1991), which demonstrates that women in Denmark have a higher chance of being in management in the public sector than in the private sector. Looking at the earnings differentials between men and women in the public and private sectors based on Luxemburg Income Study data, Gornick and Jacobs (1998) find that the share of workers in managerial positions is higher for both men and women in the public sector than in the private sector; and that women employed in the public sector have a better chance of holding such positions compared to women in the private sector. However, women's inroads into the whole range of public sector positions could also be explained or accompanied by a "downgrading of both the status of public sector employment and its associated job security" (Rubery, Smith and Fagan 1999: 218).…”

Gender earnings gap in urban Pakistan: evidence from ordinary least squares and quantile regressions

“…Like other researchers e.g. Ashraf & Ashraf (1993); Blau & Kahn (1992); Gornick & Jacobs (1998); Harkness (1996); Nasir (1998); Rice, (1999); Su & Heshmati (2013) and Taniguchi & Tuwo (2014), we have also used employment related characteristics like industry and occupation as explanatory variables in our estimated earning functions through dummy variables.…”