Is There a Glass Ceiling in Sweden?

48 Pages Posted: 23 Apr 2001 Last revised: 17 Feb 2023

See all articles by James Albrecht

James Albrecht

Georgetown University - Department of Economics; CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute); IZA Institute of Labor Economics

Anders Bjorklund

Stockholm University; IZA Institute of Labor Economics

Susan Vroman

Georgetown University; IZA Institute of Labor Economics

Abstract

Using data from 1998, we show that the gender log wage gap in Sweden increases throughout the wage distribution and accelerates in the upper tail of the distribution, which we interpret as a glass ceiling effect. Using earlier data, we show that the same pattern held at the beginning of the 1990’s but not in the prior two decades. Further, we do not find this pattern either for the log wage gap between immigrants and non-immigrants in the Swedish labor market or for the gender gap in the U.S. labor market. Our findings suggest that a gender-specific mechanism in the Swedish labor market hinders women from reaching the top of the wage distribution. Using quantile regressions, we examine whether this pattern can be ascribed primarily to gender differences in labor market characteristics or to gender differences in rewards to those characteristics. We estimate pooled quantile regressions with gender dummies, as well as separate quantile regressions by gender, and we carry out a decomposition analysis in the spirit of the Oaxaca-Blinder technique. Even after extensive controls for gender differences in age, education (both level and field), sector, industry, and occupation, we find that the glass ceiling effect we see in the raw data persists to a considerable extent.

Keywords: glass ceiling, quantile regression, Gender gap

JEL Classification: J16, J71

Suggested Citation

Albrecht, James W. and Bjorklund, Anders and Vroman, Susan B., Is There a Glass Ceiling in Sweden?. IZA Discussion Paper No. 282, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=267219 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.267219

James W. Albrecht (Contact Author)

Georgetown University - Department of Economics ( email )

Washington, DC 20057
United States
202-687-6105 (Phone)
202-687-6102 (Fax)

CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute)

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Germany

HOME PAGE: http://www.CESifo.de

IZA Institute of Labor Economics

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Anders Bjorklund

Stockholm University ( email )

Swedish Institute for Social Research (SOFI)
S-106 91 Stockholm
Sweden
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+46 8 154670 (Fax)

IZA Institute of Labor Economics

P.O. Box 7240
Bonn, D-53072
Germany

Susan B. Vroman

Georgetown University ( email )

Washington, DC 20057
United States
202-687-6024 (Phone)
202-687-6102 (Fax)

IZA Institute of Labor Economics

P.O. Box 7240
Bonn, D-53072
Germany

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