“Glass Ceiling” and “Sticky Floor” in Estonian Public and Private Sectors

This chapter scrutinizes the gender wage gap by sector across the wage distribution in Estonia, a country with a very high labor market participation by women. A unique dataset comprising the Structure of Earnings Survey linked to the registries is used, which enables accounting for human capital, including previous employment history, job position, enterprise characteristics, and parenthood. It is estimated whether the gender wage gap widens toward the top and at the bottom of the wage distribution, and to what extent characteristics “explain” the gap at different points of the distribution. The results highlight that the magnitude of the gap varies considerably across the wage distribution, and while most of the gap is attributable to gender differences in occupations and industries at the bottom, this information explains only a small part at the top. Which are the sectors where women face explicit disadvantages? The gap widens toward the top in the public sector, both at state and municipality levels, as well as in foreign-owned private companies, indicating the so-called “glass ceiling” effect. This effect is not visible in the Estonian-owned private companies with majority of workplaces. Only in the public state sector the gap systematically widens at the bottom, indicating the so-called “sticky floor” phenomenon for women, as our data does not reveal this tendency in other sectors. Floors may still be (not) sticky and ceilings (not) made of glass when considering career paths in individual organizations within these sectors.