Marta De Philippis (Bank of Italy)
Giulia Bovini and Lucia Rizzica
This paper analyzes the role that field of study choices and firm and job characteristics play in explaining gender pay gaps among university graduates at the beginning of their careers. We exploit a unique administrative population-wide dataset for Italy. We find that choices of university majors alone explain almost 60% of the early career gender pay gap, since women tend to graduate in fields that give access to lower-paying firms and jobs. Sorting across firms and jobs only accounts for 20% of the gap, indicating that its role is largely mediated by field specialization choices made while still in education.