Equal Work, Unequal Pay: Gender Wage Discrimination in India

Equal Work, Unequal Pay: Gender Wage Discrimination in India | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Research Article Equal Work, Unequal Pay: Gender Wage Discrimination in India Arz Taneja, Rachel Batra This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-4543535/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract This paper investigates gender wage discrimination in India using data from the nationally representative Indian Human Development Survey round I (IHDS 2005) as well as round II (IHDS 2011). We examine the gender wage gap in the country across rural and urban areas separately as well as at an aggregate level. Controlling for financial and household characteristics, we employ a modified Mincer regression for men and women. We then breakdown the wage differential into explainable and unexplainable components using the Blinder–Oaxaca methodology. We find that education and experience significantly influence wages across genders in both rural and urban areas, while their affect is more prominent in urban areas. Through the decomposition analysis, we find that although the log wage differential decreased between 2005 and 2011, this reduction is overshadowed by a larger portion of the differential being attributed to different treatment of the same skills, indicative of potential discrimination. Wage discrimination Gender wage gap Blinder–Oaxaca decomposition Indian labour market Full Text Additional Declarations No competing interests reported. Cite Share Download PDF Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. Our growing team is made up of researchers and industry professionals working together to solve the most critical problems facing scientific publishing. Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-4543535","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Research Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":316970985,"identity":"6228a654-abb7-42e5-b2d8-b5f0b3493ed3","order_by":0,"name":"Arz Taneja","email":"data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAZAAAAAyAQMAAABI0h/eAAAABlBMVEX///8AAABVwtN+AAAACXBIWXMAAA7EAAAOxAGVKw4bAAAA60lEQVRIiWNgGAWjYDADxgbmA0BKQoY45QfAWtgSQFp4iNfCwMBjACYJquafffwB84eaO3LM7Wc+v7pRY8HDwH746AZ8WiTOJSQwHDj2zJixJ3ebdc4xoMN40tJu4LXmDNBZB9gOJzY25G4zzmEDapHgMcOrRf4MYwPDgX+H6xv73zwzzvlHhBaDM8wMDAfbDicwzshhfpzbRoQWwzNsDAfO9h02bJzxzIw5t0+Ch42QX+TOsD98UPHtsLxhf/Ljzznf6uT42Q8fw+99Bmi0GDYwsEmAGGyElMOBPAMD8weiVY+CUTAKRsGIAgDtZErvMuhtPgAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==","orcid":"","institution":"University of Delhi","correspondingAuthor":true,"prefix":"","firstName":"Arz","middleName":"","lastName":"Taneja","suffix":""},{"id":316970986,"identity":"f291f70a-4f08-413d-8ac7-a2eaeabb3f26","order_by":1,"name":"Rachel Batra","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"University of Delhi","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Rachel","middleName":"","lastName":"Batra","suffix":""}],"badges":[],"createdAt":"2024-06-07 05:08:23","currentVersionCode":1,"declarations":"","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-4543535/v1","doiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-4543535/v1","draftVersion":[],"editorialEvents":[],"editorialNote":"","failedWorkflow":false,"files":[{"id":59041074,"identity":"a572dc7d-d495-448e-aea5-5b954c27519d","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2024-06-25 16:34:03","extension":"pdf","order_by":1,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"manuscript-pdf","size":433133,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"EqualWorkUnequalPayGenderWageDiscriminationinIndia.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-4543535/v1_covered_334a385a-3056-4730-ae1a-369caa4bc654.pdf"}],"financialInterests":"No competing interests reported.","formattedTitle":"Equal Work, Unequal Pay: Gender Wage Discrimination in India","fulltext":[],"fulltextSource":"","fullText":"","funders":[],"hasAdminPriorityOnWorkflow":false,"hasManuscriptDocX":false,"hasOptedInToPreprint":true,"hasPassedJournalQc":"","hasAnyPriority":false,"hideJournal":true,"highlight":"","institution":"","isAcceptedByJournal":false,"isAuthorSuppliedPdf":true,"isDeskRejected":"","isHiddenFromSearch":false,"isInQc":false,"isInWorkflow":false,"isPdf":true,"isPdfUpToDate":true,"isWithdrawnOrRetracted":false,"journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true},"keywords":"Wage discrimination, Gender wage gap, Blinder–Oaxaca decomposition, Indian labour market","lastPublishedDoi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-4543535/v1","lastPublishedDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-4543535/v1","license":{"name":"CC BY 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"},"manuscriptAbstract":"\u003cp\u003eThis paper investigates gender wage discrimination in India using data from the nationally representative Indian Human Development Survey round I (IHDS 2005) as well as round II (IHDS 2011). 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