Cumulative Disadvantage and Gender Differences in Early Career Earnings: Evidence from Canada's National Graduates Survey

Over the last several decades women have entered educational programs in lucrative fields like law and medicine. England (Gender and Society, 2010) has argued that, in the US, the effect of this has been to narrow the gender earnings gap in the upper part of the educational distribution and to reduce the aggregate gap. Women in Canada have also entered the legal and medical professions in large numbers. One would expect to see a similarly declining gender pay gap between the better educated. In fact, the evidence on this suggests a more complicated evolution of gender pay differences. Statistics Canada’s National Graduates Survey has collected data on field of study of successive cohorts of university graduates (at approximately five year intervals) and, then on labour force status, earnings, and family status two and five years after graduation. This makes it possible to i) determine the raw gender differences in pay both across cohorts (the first cohort analysed graduated in 1986, the last in 2000) and, within cohorts, the changes in the differences after graduation; ii) to determine the extent to which field of study continues to cause a gender difference in pay; iii) the factors other than field of study that cause a gender difference in pay, including family responsibilities. The paper reports i) analysis of the effect of gender on labour force status, focusing on statuses likely to subsequently increase pay; ii) consecutive cross-sectional Oaxaca-Blinder decompositions within and across cohorts; and iii) panel analyses within cohorts. The results suggest that, even within this highly educated sample, in the short period after graduation, women tend to cumulate a number of experiences that contribute to a widening gender pay gap.