The Gender Wage Gap and Wage Arrears in Russia: Evidence from the RLMS

Abstract: Using the RLMS, this paper re-examines the nature of the gender wage gap in Russia between 1994 and 1998 taking into account the pervasiveness of Russia's non-payment institutions. Investigating discrimination 'bands' at different sections of the income distribution and for various important sub- groups we found the following. Using censored regressions that capture the effect of wage arrears and payment inkind, the wage gap is larger than estimates derived using OLS. The wage gap is distributed unevenly both across the income distribution and between various sub-groups. Specifically, women at the lower end of the income distribution suffer the highest degree of discrimination. However, we find that wage arrears and payment in-kind attenuated wage discrimination, in particular amongst the lowest paid workers. The evidence seems to suggest that Russian enterprise managers assigned importance to equity considerations when allocating wage arrears and payment in-kind.