Monopsonistic Discrimination, Worker Turnover, and the Gender Wage Gap

Erling Barth and Harald Dale-Olsen ()
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Harald Dale-Olsen: Institute for Social Research, Oslo

No 3930, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Motivated by models of worker flows, we argue in this paper that monopsonistic discrimination may be a substantial factor behind the overall gender wage gap. On matched employer-employee data from Norway, we estimate establishment-specific wage premiums separately for men and women, conditioning on fixed individual effects. Regressions of worker turnover on the wage premium identify less wage elastic labour supply facing each establishment of women than that of men. Workforce gender composition is strongly related to employers' wage policies. The results suggest that 70-90 percent of the gender wage gap for low-educated workers may be attributed to differences in labour market frictions between men and women, while the similar figures for high-educated workers ranges from 20 to 70 percent.

Keywords: monopsony; gender wage gap (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J16 J31 J42 J63 J71 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 40 pages
Date: 2009-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-bec and nep-lab
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (68)

Published - published in: Labour Economics, 2009, 16 (5), 589-597

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Journal Article: Monopsonistic discrimination, worker turnover, and the gender wage gap (2009)
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