A new issue of the Statistical Series, Gender wage differential in the private sector 2000-2007, has been released. This issue presents main results from analysis of gender wage differentials in the private sector in Iceland. The data is mainly based on Statistics Iceland’s survey on wages, earnings and labour costs. The unbalanced panel data includes 185 thousand observations of individuals who worked in the private sector in the years 2000–2007.

The results shows wage differences between men and women, where women earn less than men. Between the year 2000 and 2007 the relative gender difference have declined from 24.8% to 15.9% for regular hourly earnings. Total hourly earnings declined from 24.9% to 18.5% for the same period.

Comparison of results in the years 2000-2007 from regression models, where wage determination was by ordinary least squares in one hand and generalised least squares on the other hand, shows gender differential between 9.2 to 10.3% in favour of men. When using wage difference decomposition technique the gender wage differential unaccounted-for is 7.3%.

The analysis was conducted following agreement between the Statistic Iceland, the Confederation of Icelandic Employers and the Icelandic Confederation of Labour in relation to collective agreement of main signatories in private sector from February 2008.

Gender wage differential in the private sector 2000-2007 - Statistical Series