The significance of labor market institutions, public policy and industry structure in patterns of gender earnings differentials: Three essays

A central theme of the dissertation's three essays is the relationship between institutional structures and trends in gender-wage inequality.; The first essay presents the argument that rapidly increasing globalization has significantly affected labor market institutions in many nations and that these effects may have some important implications for future trends in overall wage inequality and in gender-wage inequality. Focusing on recent trends in the OECD nations, it reviews and evaluates the various perspectives on the decline of workers' bargaining power over the last two decades and argues that increasing globalization has dominated the effects of such factors as rapid changes in technology and skills mismatches as central causes. The essay presents and evaluates evidence of increasing international competitive pressures and seeks to link these developments to declining unionization rates, weakened worker protection standards and the growth of part-time and temporary work arrangements throughout many nations.; The second essay examines the effects of bargaining structure and public policy on gender earnings differentials in eight advanced industrialized nations, including the U.S., over a thirty-year period from 1959 through 1989. Employing a pooled time-series cross-sectional analysis of the female-male earnings ratio, the study tests for the influence on gender earnings differentials of differences across countries in the structure of wage-setting institutions, union density and public policies such as anti-discrimination laws and family leave policies. After controlling for country-specific effects, the econometric analysis provides reasonably robust support for the influence of wage-setting institutions and family-leave policies. Thus, the findings support the central hypothesis that more centralized systems of wage determination have been significant in reducing gender based wage inequality over time.; The third essay involves a test of the hypothesis that segmented labor markets and changes in industry structure contributed to a change in traditional patterns of gender earnings inequality in the U.S. from 1979 through 1989. The study conducts a cross-sectional analysis of female/male earnings ratios for all two-digit industries for this period, specifically examining the impact of differences between primary and secondary labor markets. The study finds that the increase in gender earnings ratios was greater in the core industry/primary occupational sector of the economy than in the periphery industry/secondary occupational sector, and that the effects of human capital on earnings differentials varied widely with respect to primary and secondary labor markets. It also finds that international competition and union density rates were significant factors in earnings differentials trends.