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Is there a gender pay gap in Eastern Europe and Central Asia?
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Recent analysis of the extent and trends in the gender pay gap in ECA countries shows that growth prospects of the transition countries are being negatively affected by (i) the relatively high degree of unequal treatment of men and women with identical productivity characteristics; and (ii) the higher unequal treatment faced by women with the highest productivity potentials (i.e., women face a "glass-ceiling").
While the gross gender pay gaps have remained relatively small in most transitional economies, these cannot be explained by gender differences in productivity endowments - i.e., education, experience, etc., - and can only be attributed to unequal treatment of men of women in the labor market. Indeed, gender pay differentials exist even in those countries where the productivity characteristics of women exceed those of men.
This is in sharp contrast to the findings for established capitalist economies, where the gender pay gap is primarily accounted for by lower female productivity characteristics, with a much smaller component due to unequal treatment. Moreover, the process of labor market liberalization experienced across the region appears to have had no significant effect on the extent of this differential. Thus the deep culture factors behind the differential treatment of men and women continue to act as a barrier to the efficient working of the labor markets in the region.
ECA Poverty Team Newsletter, January 2005
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