It's not the job interview that can explain the pay gap between women and men, says an IAB study. © Lane Oatey/Imago
A new study provides clues as to why women earn less than men. The result: It has to do with the application. However, it's not about cover letters or job interviews.
Cologne – Women earn less than men. The sentence still sounds absurd, even if you have already read it umpteen times. But it is the reality. The wage gap is 15 percent for similar qualifications and in the same profession. Researchers at the Institute for Employment Research have now found out that this is largely due to the fact that women are more likely to apply for jobs with low wages and less likely to apply for companies with high wages.
Many arguments have already been used in the search for reasons for the 15 percent difference: women do not care so much about salaries, women negotiate worse, men negotiate better, women have to take care of the children, or women are traditionally more likely to work in industries where lower wages are paid.
Women are less likely to apply for well-paid jobs
IAB researchers Benjamin Lochner and Christian Merkl have studied this phenomenon and investigated the role of application behaviour. Their study, which they published in May, showed that it plays an extremely important role which jobs women apply for. This could explain half of the wage gap, i.e. around 7.5 out of 15 percent. The scientists do not make any statement about the other half and the other reasons for the wage difference.
The researchers explain that women are less likely to apply for better-paid jobs with higher demands on flexibility. If, for example, a lot of mobility is expected for a job, i.e. frequent business trips or changing places of work, the proportion of male applicants amounts to 65 percent. Especially for jobs that are well paid, employees are willing to travel longer distances. On average, men commute further than women, probably also because this is simply not possible for many. At 75 percent, women still carry out the majority of care work – i.e. activities such as childcare, care, household chores and general "caring". According to calculations by the development organization Oxfam, this work adds up to twelve billion hours a day worldwide. A job that is not paid.
Closing the pay gap between men and women: better childcare, more flexible companies
This is a devastating finding, because it is precisely the child factor that has a negative impact on salary. Although the two researchers were not able to determine when women with and without children applied, it was nevertheless possible to prove that women with children have to accept higher losses compared to men than women without children. At this point at the latest, the solution to the riddle seems within reach: The fact that women earn less is still due to a structural disadvantage, which manifests itself, among other things, in application behavior. What is the cause – and what is merely an effect – remains open.
According to Lochner and Merkl, the solution to this problem lies through the state and companies. While companies should be more concerned with the degree of flexibility they can really expect, the state needs to improve childcare facilities. Or, and this is also what the researchers are talking about, men take on more responsibility. For example, a balanced distribution of care work would not only relieve the burden on women, but also reduce the wage gap.