The Gender Pay Gap in Vietnam, 1993-2002: a Quantile Regression Approach

This paper uses mean and quantile regression analysis to investigate the gender pay gap for the wage employed in Vietnam over the period 1993 to 2002. It finds that the Doi moi reforms appear to have been associated with a sharp reduction in gender pay gap disparities for the wage employed. The average gender pay gap in this sector halved between 1993 and 2002 with most of the contraction evident by 1998. There has also been a narrowing in the gender pay gap at most selected points of the conditional wage distribution, an effect most pronounced at the top end of the conditional wage distribution. However, the decomposition analysis suggests that the treatment effect is relatively stable across the conditional wage distribution and little evidence of a ‘glass-ceiling’ effect is detected for Vietnamese women in the wage employment sector in any of the years examined. JEL code: J31, J71, C14