Abstract: Using the 2015 American Working Conditions Survey (AWCS), the author studies gender wage differentials conditional on weekly working hours. The labor supply selection corrected mean difference and quantile estimates show that the female wage gap is significant and it is the largest in the upper middle of the wage distribution. For the identification of wage determinants, the study proposes a triangular estimation framework that controls for labor supply both in reservation hours and in actual working hours. The findings show that simultaneous estimation of wage, desired and actual working hours and letting working hours take nonlinear quadratic and linear spline forms in the wage equation renders gender wage differentials insignificant.

JEL Classification: J22, J7, J31, J81.

Keywords: gender wage differentials, working hours, reservation hours, hours restrictions, joint wage-hours estimation, nonlinear budget constraint, The American Working Conditions Survey

The public research seminars of the Department of Economics and Finance (DEF) at Tallinn University of Technology  usually take place on the second and fourth Wednesdays of the month in both onsite and online format, unless announced otherwise. The presentation will last approximately 45 minutes followed by 15 minutes of discussion. The seminars are held in English. Copies of the paper are usually made available at the seminar. The DEF seminar series is organised in collaboration with the project ”Individual Behaviour and Economic  Performance: Methodological  Challenges and Institutional Context” (IBEP), which has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation programme under Grant Agreement No 952574. Questions about the seminar can be sent to the IBEP seminar coordinator Rachatar Nilavongse, rachatar.nilavongse@taltech.ee.