Gender earnings differentials in Taiwan: A stochastic frontier approach

We examine Taiwan's male-female earnings gaps over the past three decades in order to assess the progress in assimilating women into the labor market. Two alternative methods of evaluating earnings gaps are employed in this paper: the traditional Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition method and the less well-known method of evaluating labor market efficiency. Men and women's earnings are converging during this period (1978-2003) while at the same time there is little change in the level of gender discrimination measured by the standard Oaxaca-Blinder method. Using the labor market efficiency (stochastic frontier) model we find increases in labor market efficiency over time for both males and females; however, females enjoy a much faster rate of increase in efficiency. We conclude that the relative increase in female efficiency represents a decline in discrimination against females.