The charm of the Irish (Economic Association)

The charm of the Irish (Economic Association)

GRAPE was present in Ireland, during the yearly conference of the Irish Economic Association. There, we presented our research on the relation between gender wage gap and age in Germany. Yes, a research conducted by a multinational team, about German women presented to a mostly Irish audience. Yet, we received valuable comments to work on in the future.

In our research, we extend the DiNardo, Fortin and Lemieux (1996) decomposition to separate age, year and cohort effects. This allows us to analyze the effects of ageing on women's wages, and particularly in the adjusted gender wage gap. We observe that differences tend to increase with age, though probably in a non-monotonic fashion, with a spike in the oldest group of our sample. This finding has important policy implications, both related to the retention of older workers in the labor market, as differences in remuneration might not foster participation of older women. On the other side, it also indicates that in order to tackle the gender wage gap is not enough to focus on the reproductive period. Measures addressed at older workers should also be put in place.