The gender wage gap among recent post-secondary graduates in Canada: a distributional approach

Using the National Graduates Survey, we examine the trends in the gender wage gap among recent post-secondary graduates in Canada between 1988 and 2007. Female graduates earn on average 6-14% less than males during the period two to five years after graduation. Decompositions show that observable personal characteristics and job attributes can explain only a small portion of the wage gap. We also find that men earn more than women at every point of the distribution. Interestingly, the wage difference shrank in the lower half of the distribution in recent years, while it increased in the upper half.