Intersections and Commonalities: Using Matching to Decompose Wage Gaps by Gender and Nativity in Germany

Abstract

We investigate intersecting wage gaps by gender and nativity by comparing the wages between immigrant women, immigrant men, native women, and native men based on Western German survey data. Adding to the analytical diversity of the field, we do a full comparison of group wages to emphasize the relationality of privilege and disadvantage, and we use a nonparametric matching decomposition that is well suited to address unique group-specific experiences. We find that wage (dis)advantages associated with the dimensions of gender and nativity are nonadditive and result in distinct decomposition patterns for each pairwise comparison. After accounting for substantial group differences in work attachment, individual resources, and occupational segregation, unexplained wage gaps are generally small for comparisons between immigrant women, immigrant men, and native women, but large when either group is compared to native men. This finding suggests that the often presumed “double disadvantage” of immigrant women is rather a “double advantage” of native men.

Comparing the Incomparable? Issues of Lacking Common Support, Functional-Form Misspecification, and Insufficient Sample Size in Decompositions

“…Together with labor market experience, these variables also exhibit the most pronounced differences between matched immigrant women (B, m) and matched native men (A, m), which are reflected in D X . 10 In Sprengholz and Hamjediers (2022), we explore this in much more detail; for instance, we show that both groups also differ systematically in terms of occupations. Among both groups, very specific persons stay unmatched (predominantly "cleaners and helpers" among immigrant women, and blue-collar workers among native men), which helps us understand why the unmatched earn, on average, lower wages than the matched in both groups.…”

“…To examine if and how the same issues occur in real-world situations, we use an example from our previous work (Sprengholz and Hamjediers 2022) and apply matching, KBO, and the intermediate approach via propensity scores to the wage gap between immigrant women (group B ) and native men (group A ) in Germany. Gender and nativity wage gaps are well documented, but less is known about how these dimensions intersect in the production of wage (dis)advantages for immigrant women, immigrant men, native women, and native men.…”

“…From an intersectional perspective, both theory and evidence suggest common support can be particularly low in contexts in which several dimensions of advantage and disadvantage (e.g., gender, race, nativity, class) coincide in the creation of unique group-specific experiences (Black et al 2008; Crenshaw 1991; McCall 2005; Sprengholz and Hamjediers 2022). Thus, when studying gaps in particular outcomes, researchers need to investigate how comparable different groups are along intersectional lines (e.g., Black women and White women).…”

“… 8. We slightly deviate from the approach in Sprengholz and Hamjediers (2022) in performing the random selection of observations after conditioning on employment and in doing so repeatedly as part of the bootstrapping. …”

Life-course-sensitive analysis of group inequalities: Combining Sequence Analysis with the Kitagawa-Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition

“…A combination of SA with decompositions along the distribution (for an overview: Fortin et al 2011) was recently proposed by Gruijters, Winkle, and Fasang (2023). Second, applying Ñopo's decomposition to address the common support problem by using matching procedures might reveal further inequality dimensions like social closure for group differences (Ñopo 2008;Sprengholz and Hamjediers 2022). Finally, the SA-KOB decomposition does not uncover causal effects.…”