Gender Differences in the Spanish Labour Market: A Review before and after the Economic Crisis
The main aim was to analyze if the discrimination`s rate in wages between men and female has increased or decreased over the last years in Spain, and to determinate if it has been influenced by the economic growth till 2007 and by the economic crisis later in Spain
Data and Methods
In this paper we examine alternative methods for estimating the extent of labor market discrimination. All of the methods involve the decomposition of gross (unadjusted) wage differentials into discrimination and productivity components. These methods can be expressed in a single generalized form and are shown to differ with respect to the implicitly assumed nondiscriminatory, competitive wage structure. These methods are applied to micro data from the Salary Structure Survey (1995-2010) performed by the National Institute of Statistics in Spain.
Results
The average hourly wage in Spain has been increased from 7.80€ hourly to 12.46€ hourly (1995-2010). Yet, the increase was much higher in the case of female. The wages` difference between men and female has been reduced during the period analyzed, dropping from 23.81% in 1995 to 12.89% in 2010. Of the total wages’ difference, 13.01% was due to the wage discrimination between men and female (10.80% due to difference in productivity between men and female) in 1995, 8.09% in 2002 (5.58% due to difference in productivity), 8.08% in 2006 (5.76% due to productivity`s difference) and 5.88% in 2010 (6.91% due to productivity difference).
Conclusion
Although the discrimination rate has decreased over the period analyzed, there is still 5.88% of discrimination between men and female. Therefore, it will be required to adopt policies to combat discrimination and to advantage the adaptation.