Wage structure and the Canadian gender wage gap: 1980-1995

Abstract

This thesis examines the Canadian male-female wage differential between 1980 and 1995, taking into account the effects of a changing wage structure via the Juhn, Murphy, and Pierce ( 1991) decomposition. This methodology attributes changes in the gender gap as being either gender specific or an effect of wage structure changes. Two alternative wage distributions of reference are examined to identify changes in the wage structure. Using the male wage distribution as a reference, the wage structure effects are larger than when the overall wage distribution is used. The findings indicate that women have made substantial gender specific gains, but that the changing wage structure has masked measured improvement. This suggests that changes in the wage structure are responsible for the apparent stalling of women' s progress in terms of the gender gap during 1980s, and the slowing decline in the 'unexplained' portion of the gap found in other studies.