An Analysis of the Gender Wage Gap Amongst Congressional Staff Members
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Montgomery, Meg M
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Abstract
For decades Congress has released legislation targeting the gender wage gap, however, in 2016 full time working women were only receiving about 79 cents to the dollar compared to men. This paper seeks to answer the question, is the gender wage gap in the institution creating these legislation exhibiting more equal pay between genders than the national average. Using the Blinder-Oaxaca Decomposition this paper examines the determinants of the gender wag gap among congressional staff members. Our sample includes all staff members working in the House of Representative or Senate offices from 2000 - 2016, regressing log wage on office and demographic characteristics. Variations of this model include split populations by political party, and House and Senate. We find that the wage gap in congress' staff is no better than the national average. We also examine the determinants contributing to the explained and unexplained portions of the wage gap.
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Keywords
gender wage gap, congress, political science, economics, wage gap, equality, equal pay, congressional staff, wages, wage gap, pay gap