Contraculations to CIRHR Associate Professor Dionne Pohler and PhD student Shannon Potter, who have been awarded a research grant by the Institute for Gender and the Economy for "An Exploration of the Factors Affecting Gender Earnings Gaps in the Absence of Wage Discrimination"
Description: Countless studies document a gender earnings gap in labour markets and organizations, but few studies are able to tease apart the factors that lead to the gap. The project explores these factors among a group of emergency department physicians – an interesting setting because many factors proposed to lead to earnings gaps are held constant, such as education, occupation, and the hourly wage rate. While some shifts do receive a premium (e.g., night shifts, on-call), because shifts are equitably assigned, the only factor that could contribute to a gender earnings gap in shift-based compensation is gendered sorting across shifts. Using detailed compensation data, the investigators explore whether shift premiums and shift trading lead to a gender earnings gap in this setting. Findings will be instructive for understanding if the design of compensation systems affects gender earnings gaps in the absence of wage discrimination.
Since its launch in 2016, GATE has funded 61 researchers investigating topics such as the impact of CEO characteristics on the corporate gender gap, barriers to reporting sexual harassment and assault, increasing the number of girls and women pursuing STEM careers, and the double-bind that women face in entering the job market and advancing in their careers.