The Ghana Living Standards Survey Round Six Household Heads Annual Gender Earnings Gap: An Empirical Analysis

International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS) | Volume III, Issue XI, November 2019 | ISSN 2454–6186

The Ghana Living Standards Survey Round Six Household Heads Annual Gender Earnings Gap: An Empirical Analysis

Isaac Addai

Department of Accounting Studies, College of Technology Education, University of Education, Winneba, P.O.BOX 1277, Kumasi, Ghana

Abstract: – The existence of differential earnings between male and female is taken as a universal phenomenon in almost all countries regardless of the nature and structure of the economic system. Research on gender earnings gap in Ghana is relatively a very new area of social research. One is not therefore in a position to tell how acute the gender earnings differential is in the Ghanaian economy. This paper is an attempt to contribute to bringing into the limelight the social phenomena of gender earnings gap in Ghana through empirical evidence by estimating the Household Heads gender earnings gap in Ghana based on data from The Ghana Living Standards Survey Round Six (GLSS6).The paper used a formalized method to analyze the log annual earnings differential between male and female Household Heads to determine what portion of their earnings differential is due to skills and discrimination. The findings suggests that males Household Heads in Ghana from the GLSS 6 data with sample average female characteristics earn 63% more than female Household Heads in Ghana with matching level of characteristics, ceteris paribus.

Key words: GLSS 6, household head, global, gender, earnings, Oaxaca decomposition

I. INTRODUCTION

The occurrence of gender earnings gap is an old age phenomena which is even mentioned in the Old Testament of the Bible with the worth of females evaluated as three-fifths of the worth of males. “Set the value of a male between the ages of twenty and sixty at fifty shekels of silver, according to the sanctuary shekel, and if it is a female set her value at thirty shekels” (Leviticus (NIV), 27: 2-4).Empirical evidence abounds that shows that gender earnings gap exists in both the developed and developing countries. Grey-Bowen and McFarlane (2010) posit that gender discrimination in earnings is in part, cultural stemming from the belief that men are superior to women in terms of skills, leadership and managerial abilities.

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