Does Market Liberalisation Reduce Gender Discrimination? Econometric Evidence from Hungary, 1986-1998

Jolliffe, Dean; Campos, Nauro F.

doi:10.2139/ssrn.542702

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Does Market Liberalisation Reduce Gender Discrimination? Econometric Evidence from Hungary, 1986-1998

32 Pages Posted: 8 May 2004

See all articles by Dean Jolliffe

Dean Jolliffe

World Bank, DECDG; IZA Institute of Labor Economics; Global Labor Organization (GLO); Johns Hopkins University, Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Students

Nauro F. Campos

University College London; University of Michigan at Ann Arbor - The William Davidson Institute; IZA Institute of Labor Economics

Date Written: April 2004

Abstract

An alleged achievement of socialism was gender equality in the labour market. Has its collapse shattered this accomplishment? The theoretical literature and attendant empirical evidence are inconclusive. Using data for 2.9 million wage earners in Hungary we find that the male-female difference in log wages declined from 0.31 to 0.19 between 1986 and 1998 and that this is largely explained by a matching decline in "Oaxaca's discrimination," suggesting extraordinary improvement of women's relative situation. Further, we find that variation over time in the wage gaps is associated with public and large firms having progressively smaller gaps than their counterparts.

Keywords: Hungary, transition, discrimination, gender, wage gap, education

JEL Classification: I2, J16, P3

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Jolliffe, Dean and Campos, Nauro F., Does Market Liberalisation Reduce Gender Discrimination? Econometric Evidence from Hungary, 1986-1998 (April 2004). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=542702 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.542702