Women and Wages Worldwide: How the National Proportion of Working Women Brings Underpayment into the Organization

Abstract

Many employees are underpaid relative to their country’s level of wealth. In agreement with social identity theory principles extended to the national level, our 59-nation study uncovered that this form of wealth-referenced underpayment is associated with the proportion of working women. In countries with a relatively small or relatively large proportion of female workers, all workers are underpaid to the extent that merit pay and strikes are relatively rare. Payroll taxes, labour supply, unemployment rate, collective bargaining power, and the national wage gap could not disconfirm the results. We discuss how these country-level findings may innovate theory building on the impact of female worker proportion, merit pay, and strikes on payment in occupations, departments, and organizations.