Arbeitspapier

Gender Pay Gaps across STEM Fields of Study

Gender pay gaps in earnings are well-documented in the literature. However, new factors contributing to women's lower earnings have emerged and remain under-researched. Educational choices are among them. We use a rich administrative dataset from Poland, a Central Eastern European country with high tertiary education enrolment and high female employment rates among young women, to study gender pay gaps among tertiary education graduates with degrees in different fields of study while paying particular attention to STEM fields graduates (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). We find that already in the first year after graduation, women earn over 20% less than men. This gap widens over time. We also find significant variation across different STEM fields both in the size of the gender pay gap and in how it changes over time. The gap is largest among mathematics graduates, at over 25%; while it does not exceed 3% among chemical and Earth sciences graduates. As these differences narrow only slightly within the first four years of graduates' working careers, policymakers' efforts to increase the number of women earning STEM degrees may not be enough to achieve gender pay equality.

Sprache
Englisch

Erschienen in
Series: IZA Discussion Papers ; No. 16613

Klassifikation
Wirtschaft
Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
Labor Discrimination
Thema
STEM
labor market
higher education
gender pay gap
field of study
Poland

Ereignis
Geistige Schöpfung
(wer)
Zając, Tomasz
Magda, Iga
Bożykowski, M.
Chłoń-Domińczak, Agnieszka
Jasiński, M.
Ereignis
Veröffentlichung
(wer)
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
(wo)
Bonn
(wann)
2023

Handle
Letzte Aktualisierung
10.03.2025, 11:41 MEZ

Datenpartner

Dieses Objekt wird bereitgestellt von:
ZBW - Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Wirtschaftswissenschaften - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft. Bei Fragen zum Objekt wenden Sie sich bitte an den Datenpartner.

Objekttyp

  • Arbeitspapier

Beteiligte

  • Zając, Tomasz
  • Magda, Iga
  • Bożykowski, M.
  • Chłoń-Domińczak, Agnieszka
  • Jasiński, M.
  • Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Entstanden

  • 2023

Ähnliche Objekte (12)