Gender Gap in Pay in the Russian Federation

This paper decomposes the gender gap in
pay in the Russian Federation along the earnings
distribution for the period 1996–2011. The analysis uses a
reweighted, recentered influence function decomposition that
allows estimating the contribution of each covariate on the
wage structure and composition effects along the earnings
distribution. The paper finds that women are in flat career
paths compared with men; the importance of observable
characteristics that proxy human capital in the gender pay
gap decrease along the earnings distribution; and if women’s
pay took into account their educational degrees as much as
men’s, the gender pay gap would disappear or even reverse at
the top of the earnings distribution. The results suggest
that women at the bottom of the earnings distribution should
be helped to increase their labor market skills, and women
at the top of the distribution should be helped to break the
glass ceiling and be remunerated for their skills to the
same extent as men.