Abstract
Applying the standard bootstrapping technique with corrections for heteroskedasticity for a sample of the 1997 Urban Household Survey in China, the present article attempts to test (1) whether the commonly used decomposition methods for gender earnings differentials give significantly different results and (2) whether the explained component is significantly different from the unexplained component (which is commonly referred to as discrimination) within each decomposition method. Based on a national data set, the empirical results indicated some significant differences in both tests. The implication of the results is that the proposed bootstrapping technique can be regarded as a guideline on applying which approach to decompose gender earnings differentials among different methods without losing important information, and on evaluating the relative importance of the decomposition components for any chosen method.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1583-1593 |
| Number of pages | 11 |
| Journal | Applied Economics |
| Volume | 40 |
| Issue number | 12 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Jan 2008 |
Bibliographical note
The authors are grateful for the useful comments and suggestions from Hongyi Li and an anonymous referee and for the research assistance provided by Chi-keung Lau.Funding
This research was supported in part by a Competitive Earmarked Research Grant (No. LU3110/03H) from the RGC of Hong Kong SAR Government and the Faculty Research Grant of the Kong Baptist University (FRG/02-03/I-37).