The role of gender among low-paid and high-paid workers

Abstract

Using data from the 2001 Australian Census of Population and Housing Household Sample File, this article analyses the gender wage gap across the wage distribution by using a quantile regression approach. The results show that there is a much larger gender wage gap among high-paid workers than there is among lowpaid workers. Moreover, this wage gap tends to increase reasonably uniformly when one is moving up through the wage distribution. Institutional factors, the work environment and social norms are all areas that may require attention in order to redress the undervaluation of women’s skills.