The gender wage gap in top corporate jobs is still there

Abstract

We investigate the gender wage gap in top corporate jobs for the years 2000 till 2004. Using data from the OSIRIS database, we ¯nd that female managers receive 24.0 percent less in total compensation (salary, bonuses, other payments and exer- cised stock options) than their male colleagues. When we control for personal, ¯rm and industry characteristics, this di®erence reduces to 15.9 percent. Controlling for occupational segregation, i.e. \glass ceiling", reduces the di®erence to 6.0 percent. Additional results that fully consider the role of stock option indicate a 9.0 to 12.1 percent di®erence. These results suggest that the main sources of the gender wage gap in top corporate jobs are occupational segregation and a di®erent endowment of male and female managers with stock options.