The Gap that Survived the Transition: The Gender Wage Gap Over Three Decades in Estonia

Abstract

This paper looks at the gender wage gap throughout the transition from communism to capitalism and throughout fast economic convergence. The case of Estonia is used, and the labour force survey micro data is employed from 1989 to 2020. The communist regimes were characterized by highly regulated wage determination and the high educational attainment and labour market participation of women. Despite a formally egalitarian regime, the raw gender wage gap was as large as 41% in 1989. The large gender wage gap under communist rule diminished quickly during the transition to a capitalism, mainly due to the erosion of distortions in the labour market, such as low returns to education. The paper has two main messages, first, the position of women in the labour market has improved over the last three decades. The mechanism behind their gains is similar to those in other formerly centrally planned economies, the education of women is even better now, they are employed in better occupations and their returns to education are higher. Second, the gender wage gap was large already three decades ago and the unexplained part has been resistant to decline. This points to strong inertia in the gender wage gap and to the importance of longer-term factors in it. The decline in the gap is related to the overall decline in wage inequality, minimum wages have also contributed to this process. While gender attitudes have become much more egalitarian, it is difficult to prove their role.

Effects of automation on the gender pay gap: the case of Estonia

“…At the same time, such an important factor as the average gender pay gap is still around 14% with some variation between countries, and with Estonian figures at the top end at 21.7% (the percentage shows the fact that females receive respectively smaller salaries) (Eurostat, 2019). Estonia is a special case in terms of showing the largest gender pay gap in the European Union along with providing long-term dynamics of this fact (Meriküll and Tverdostup, 2020;. Being a small and fast developing country, Estonia provides a high level of female employment compared to the average in other European countries (Tverdostup & Paas, 2017), and despite the issue of the high gender pay gap having been actively discussed by researchers Tverdostup & Paas, 2016), most of the gap remains unexplained.…”

Appearance-based discrimination against young women in the workplace

“…According to Eurostat (2019), Estonia had the highest gender pay gap in favour of men in the European Union in 2017. The wage gap has survived the transition period from communism to capitalism (Merik€ ull and Tverdostup, 2021). As in many other post-Soviet societies, Estonian women are well-educated and active in the labour market (World Economic Forum, 2022).…”

“…This is related to the requirement to work full time under the Soviet regime (Bienefeld et al, 2007;Kaskla, 2003). Soviet social expectations were, however, paternalistic with respect to women's roles and duties (Kaskla, 2003;Merik€ ull and Tverdostup, 2021;Reingardiene, 2003;V€ o€ ormann, 2009). After the collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), one example of expectations for women in Estonia was beauty contests, which became a part of the national identity movement and created beauty norms for women.…”

“…The appearance-based discrimination against Tiina addressed in this study may be a legacy of the beauty expectations faced by Estonian women generally (Kaskla, 2003) and the sexualised attention given to (young) women's bodies (Mih ail a, 2017). Although in Estonia women tend to face demands to meet appearance-based beauty expectations (Kaskla, 2003;Aavik, 2015;Merik€ ull and Tverdostup, 2021), and Tiina did indeed meet those expectations, the paradox was that looking attractive and beautiful was not an advantage to her within her specific workplace culture. In the masculine realm of her workplace her appearance became sexualised both by men and women alike and that appearance also undermined her credibility as a competent employee.…”

“…The cases for this study involved women. Women in the workplace in Estonia are tied more closely to the masculine corporeal realm than are men but, at the same time, there are embedded societal norms which entail women having to conform to a feminine role and ensure appearance-based beauty requirements (Aavik, 2015;Merik€ ull and Tverdostup, 2021). Therefore, in the workplace, they tend to be evaluated much more strictly in terms of their appearance than are men (Burns, 2004;Cavico et al, 2012Cavico et al, , 2013Harwood, 2007).…”