Beneath the surface: The decline in gender injury gap

• We show a reduction in gender wage and injury gaps in Italy from 1994 to 2002.
• Results are driven by changes experienced by low-skilled female workers.
• Our analysis suggests that the effects are due to compensating wage differential.

Gender differences in the labor market are typically measured by the wage gap. In this paper, we investigate how extending the analysis to an additional job amenity, namely workplace safety, may shed new light on the evolution of gender differences. Our results show that focusing on one unique measure of the gender gap may provide a biased view of the actual progress of women in the labor market. In our data, a significant reduction in the wage gap has been accompanied by a relative increase in injury risk for some groups of workers, e.g. low-skilled female workers. The decreased gender wage gap for these workers does not necessarily imply an overall improvement in their labor market outcomes.