Why Is There Interethnic Variation in the Gender Wage Gap?: The Role of Cultural Factors

This paper analyzes interethnic variation in the gender wage gap among immigrants in the United States. Controlling for human capital factors does not eliminate interethnic variation in the gender wage gap. Moreover, a positive correlation exists between the gender wage gaps of first generation immigrants and the same gaps in those groups' countries of origin. Although I cannot detect a home country effect for second-and-higher generation immigrants, the pattern for the first generation gap is consistent with a role for cultural factors, in addition to human capital and institutional factors, in explaining why some women earn more relative to men than others.