The Impact of Worker and Establishment-Level Characteristics on Male-Female Wage Differentials: Evidence from Danish Matched Employee-Employer Data

Abstract

This paper examines how the segregation of women into certain occupations, industries, establishments, and job cells impacts the gender wage differential of full-time, private sector workers in Denmark. We use matched employer and employee data that contain labor market information for the Danish population. This enables us to document, for the first time, the wage impacts of gender segregation at the level of establishment and job cell in Denmark. We estimate the wage effects of gender segregation at the above four levels through fixed effects or through controls for the proportion female within the four structures. We find that occupation has a much larger role than industry or establishment in accounting for the gender gap in fulltime, private sector wages in Denmark. In addition, men and women earn different wages within job cells.