Male and Female Earnings in Canadian Manufacturing, 1931

A cross-section sample of industry-level data for 58 3-digit Canadian manufacturing industries from the 1931 Census of Canada and Census of Industry is used to estimate interindustry earnings structures of male and female workers. Tests for male-female earnings function coefficient difference produce strong evidence of jointly significant differences between the 1931 interindustry earning structure of male and female workers. Decomposition analysis reveals that virtually all the observed male-female earnings differential is apparently attributable to male-female differences in earnings function coefficients.