Investigating Gender Wage Gap in Employment: A Microeconometric Type-Analysis for Cameroon

Using the 2007 Cameroon Household Consumption Survey, we study gender wage disparity in pay-employment and self-employment. The main question considered in this paper is to know why women pay-employment and self-employment wages are relatively low. More generally, what is the underlying factors generating and explained wage gap between men and women householder in employment? To answer to our question, firstly, we use the Oaxaca-Blinder (OB) Decomposition to explain wage gap. Afterward, we perform Quantile Regression Decomposition using Machado and Mata (MM) method to see at different level of wage distribution the gap behaviour. Our main findings indicate that in the both methods, the wage gap is due to unexplained component in self-employment and to explained component in pay-employment with particularly strong effects at the extreme of wage distribution. In fine, governments should promote further development of work/life balance policies and other public employment supports to facilitate female labour force participation. Besides, future policy development should focus on remaining gender gaps in employment outcomes, including persistent occupational and sectorial concentration