An empirical study of the determinants of salary and the male/female wage differential

Abstract

The determinants of salary are not well understood. The role that salary determinants play in influencing the male/female wage differential is even less well understood. As a result, the extent to which volitional employer discrimination affects the male/female wage differential is likely to be either understated or overstated. This study is designed to answer two questions. The first question concerns the identification of the determinants of salary. The second question addresses the issue of whether the determinants of salary are different for males and females. Contributions from the disciplines of economics, organizational behavior/theory, and sociology have previously identified criteria that influence salary determination. The findings from these three disciplines will be synthesized into a conceptual model of salary determination in this study. Specifically, the findings from human capital theory in economics, job characteristics research from organizational behavior/theory, and the power literature from sociology will be incorporated into the conceptual framework. An original contribution will be the addition of differences in preferred outcomes and power strategies to the model that explains salary determination. Hypotheses are developed for each of these conceptual influences. A field study employing a mail-out questionnaire will be conducted to test the hypotheses.