Economics Explored

The Gender Pay Gap with Dr Leonora Risse

Episode Summary

A gender pay gap still exists despite the introduction of equal pay laws in many countries several decades ago. Why is this so? To what extent is it due to differences in the industries and occupations men and women work in? Or to differences in educational attainment, experience, or in the Big Five personality traits, among other factors? To help us understand what we know about the gender pay gap, Economics Explained host Gene Tunny is joined this episode by Dr Leonora Risse, currently a Fellow in the Women and Public Policy Program at the Harvard Kennedy School.

Episode Notes

This episode’s guest Dr Leonora Risse is currently a fellow in the Women and Public Policy program at the Harvard Kennedy School. Prior to taking up her Kennedy School fellowship this year, Leonora was a Vice-Chancellor's Postdoctoral Research Fellow at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia. As we discuss toward the end of the episode, Leonora has been a very active board member of the Australian Women in Economics Network, which is affiliated with the Economic Society of Australia. Leonora is well qualified to talk about the gender pay gap, having co-authored an article on the gender pay gap which was published in Oxford Economic Papers in 2018.

Use these timestamps to jump right into Gene and Leonora’s conversation:

• 1:53 – size of the gender pay gap
• 4:41 – gender pay gap partly due to women and men being concentrated in different industries, but partly to do with women not progressing up the career ladder as quickly as men do
• 8:47 – how some policy settings (e.g. means-testing of child care benefits) can create high effective marginal tax rates for women and discourage them from returning to the workforce or working more hours
• 12:26 – men get rewarded for being confident and ambitious, but women don’t – what does this mean regarding all those self-help books by Sheryl Sandberg, Marie Forleo, etc.?
• 17:57 – women won’t go for a new job unless they feel they meet 100% of the criteria while men will if they think they meet 60% 
• 26:58 – impact of big 5 personality traits (e.g. agreeableness, conscientiousness, etc.) on gender pay gap
• 41:07 – barriers to women moving into male-dominated industries (e.g. mining, economics & finance)
• 43:07 – Gene asks Leonora whether gender pay gap will naturally close over time due to higher tertiary enrolments among women than men and Leonora responds “…even though a higher share of women compared to men to achieve these educational qualifications, they still tend to be concentrated in fields of study that are associated with lower pay.”
• 48:42 – what the Australian Women in Economics Network (WEN) has been up to, and why we should try to avoid “manels”, all male panels of speakers

Leonora has kindly provided the following supplementary information on her gender pay gap research to help listeners understand her findings:

Supplementary analysis of gender pay gap

Earlier this year, Leonora recorded a podcast interview on the gender pay gap for the Economic Society of Australia (Victoria):

Does confidence advance women’s careers?

Also, you may be interested in Leonora’s Mandarin article:

Rewarding competence not confidence offers a step toward equality

And if you’re interested in what the Australian Women in Economics Network has been doing to promote a career in economics to women, check out this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtOU-DAVch0