Taiwan from various aspects including wage decomposition, interindustry wage differentials,
and gender wage gap across industries. Using the 1978-2003 Manpower Utilization Survey
data, our results in terms of the wage decomposition indicate that the inclusion of industry
variables increases the explained portion of the gender wage gap over our sample period by
2-14 percent. The analysis of the interindustry wage differentials shows that a female (male)
worker in the highest wage differential industry earned 15-36 (10-29) percent more than the
average female (male) worker among all industries. The ranges of the interindustry wage
differentials are higher among female workers than among male workers for most years, and
the adjusted standard deviations are also higher for females than for males in each year.
We have also applied various measures to assess the gender wage gap across industries and
found that women in the Mining industry faced the largest gender wage gap for the years
1978 to 1991. In the Mining industry, women have a wage differential that is 35-93 percent
below that of men during this time period. The Finance industry has tended to be the
most advantageous industry for women during the past decade. The wage differential for
women in the Finance industry is 9-16 percent below that of men. These results along with
the increase in the ratio of women in the Finance industry and the decrease in the ratio of
women in the Mining industry may justify the trend toward a narrowing overall gender wage
gap in Taiwan from 1992 on.