Innovation as a firm-level factor of the gender wage gap

Purpose This paper investigates the relationship of both technological (product and process) and non-technological (organizational and marketing) innovation with the gender wage gap at firms. Design/methodology/approach Using employer–employee level data from Estonia, the authors estimate Mincerian wage equations, in order to show how innovation at the firm level is associated with the gender wage gap. Next, the authors use propensity score matching (PSM) to study the effects of the movement of men and women into innovative firms, how this shapes the gender wage gap at firms. Findings The authors find that both technological and non-technological innovation are associated with a larger gender wage gap at firms. The relationship between innovation and the contemporaneous gender wage gap at firms reflects to a significant extent the different selection of men and women with different time-invariant characteristics to innovative firms. Further, the authors find that movement of men and women to work at innovative firms is in longer term associated with larger gains in wages for men. The authors also observe that the relationship of innovation with gender wage gap is stronger in the case of women with children. Originality/value Much of the prior analysis focuses on the effects of technological innovation on gender-related labour market outcomes. The authors show here that the relationship of innovation at firms with higher gender wage gap is not only specific to technological innovation, but is more general, and is observed across different types of innovation indicators, including non-technological innovation. This study's results suggest that the effects of innovation on gender wage gap may reflect to an extent the higher demand for flexibility of employees for work purposes at innovative firms, which may increase the gender wage gap, especially between men and women with children.