Upcoming workshop

October 10,  2025 (Friday)  15:00-18:10, JST

Venue: 東京大学大学院経済学研究科 学術交流棟 （小島ホール）1階　第2セミナー室にてハイブリッドで開催 

        Seminar Room 2 on the 1st floor of the Economics Research Annex

         (Kojima Hall) , The University of Tokyo 

Guest Speaker 1：Dean R. Hyslop (Motu Economic and Public Policy Research)

Title：Minimum wages and wage inequality in New Zealand

Abstract: This paper addresses the effects of dramatic increases in minimum wages on wage inequality in New Zealand since 2000. Over this period the adult minimum wage increased more than 75% in CPI-adjusted real terms, and applicable minimum wages for teenagers increased by more than 200%. There has been broad-based wage growth across the distribution, with remarkably stable growth of about 30% (1.2% per annum) across the top-half of the wage distribution, and substantially stronger at lower quantiles (up to 66% at the 5th percentile). This has compressed the lower tail, and reduced wage inequality: between 1997-2000 and 2020-2023, the standard deviation of log(wages) fell by 16%, while the log-difference between the 50th and 10th percentiles of wages (50-10 gap) fell by 28% compared to a small (4%) increase in the 90-50 gap. Adapting the DiNardo, Fortin and Lemieux (1996) methodology to assess the contributions of changes in worker characteristics, economic (wage) returns to characteristics and the minimum wage to changes in wage inequality over this period, we conclude that minimum wage increases explain most of the reduction in wage inequality (about 90% of the 50-10 change, and 70% of the change in the standard deviation of log(wages)), while changes in worker characteristics modestly increased wages and inequality, and changes in returns reduced inequality slightly. However, there has been an unexplained increase in the density between the recent minimum and median wages: differences between male and female wage changes are consistent with recent pay equity settlements being a contributing factor, together with minimum wage spillover effects.

Guest Speaker 2：Chihiro Inoue（Faculty of Economics, Kobe University）

Title：Does the Gender Ratio at Colleges Affect High School Students’ College Choices?

Abstract: Although the gender gap in mathematics and sciences in OECD countries is negligible, female students are still less likely to major in STEM fields in college, which can lead to several social issues. One explanation that has received less attention in the literature is that STEM programs are predominantly male-dominated, which makes female students a minority. We study whether the gender ratio at colleges affects high school students’ college choices and the extent to which it contributes to the gender gap in STEM programs. We begin by using administrative data to show that the gender ratio has become more balanced both in STEM and non-STEM programs over the last 21 years, especially in the areas where students are supposed to have less trade-off among program attributes. We then use an incentivized discrete choice experiment and show that the gender ratio at colleges does affect both female and male students’ college choices: both female and male students prefer gender-balanced college programs over those with a male or female majority. Students avoid programs where they will be a minority mainly because they expect it to be difficult to fit into such environments. A counterfactual analysis suggests that the low female student share in STEM programs reduces the likelihood of female students choosing STEM programs by 6.0 percentage points or 15.7％, and they incur a utility cost equivalent to 0.58 standard deviations of program selectivity. Removing this constraint would lead to female students with high mathematics ability replacing male students with low mathematics but high reading ability in STEM. Thus, the gender ratio at colleges is an important factor for high school students’ college choices, and making STEM programs more gender-balanced can help narrow the STEM gender gap and address social issues arising from it, and can improve the allocation of talent.

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