Research

Publications

Essential workers and wage inequality: Wage differentials before and during the Covid-19 pandemic, 2006 to 2022, European Societies, 27(3): 580–615, (2025).
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Graphical abstract ess_worker_wages
Abstract In 2020, several governments declared specific occupations as essential for maintaining the functioning of society in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. A current question in the public debate on fair pay is whether essential workers are sufficiently remunerated. Using data from the Netherlands, I analyze the wages of essential workers relative to other workers before and during the Covid-19 pandemic. Results indicate that essential workers earn less relative to other workers within higher-paid strata of the occupational structure, while they earn more within lower-paid strata. These wage differentials are shaped by gender composition and sectoral employment. I employ a difference-in-differences design based on quarterly data between January 2017 and September 2022 to assess whether the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic affected wage differentials due to an increasing public appreciation of essential work. Results indicate that the collective experience of the Covid-19 pandemic has not benefited essential workers in the short-term.

Occupations and careers within organizations: Do organizations facilitate unequal wage growth?, Social Science Research, 120, (2024).
Awarded the Vered Kraus Award at the ISA RC28 Spring Meeting 2023
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Graphical abstract occ_wagegrowth_org
Abstract Recent research suggests that occupational positions and organizational structures intersect during the formation of wage inequality over the working career. Using administrative data from the Netherlands, I investigate whether workers who start in different occupational positions experience unequal wage growth while remaining employed in an organization. Results show that workers in professional and managerial positions experience larger wage growth than workers in lower-status occupational positions. After six years of staying at the same organization, predicted wage growth rates vary between 5.44% for production workers and 10.18% for technical professionals. These findings indicate that occupational stratification has a dynamic component that unfolds at the level of organizations. I test whether occupational sorting across organizations with differing pay quality mediates part of the occupation-based heterogeneity in wage growth. The results indicate that occupational sorting is marked but that sorting explains only up to around 8% of heterogeneity in firm-internal wage growth between occupational positions in the Dutch labor market.

Temporary employment and wage inequality over the life course, European Sociological Review, 40(5): 853-871, (2024).
(with Thijs Bol and Bram Lancee)
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Graphical abstract inequality_lifecourse
Abstract Wage inequality between workers with different levels of educational attainment has been shown to increase over the life course. In this study, we investigate to what extent this growth is explained by temporary employment. Using linked employer-employee register data from the Netherlands, we follow the labor market careers of workers born in 1979. We decompose the impact of temporary employment on the change in the educational wage gap over the life course into two distinct components: (a) changes in the group-specific temporary employment rates (group-specific risk) and (b) changes in the group-specific effects of temporary employment on wages (group-specific vulnerability). In line with previous research, we find a marked growth of the educational wage gap over the life course. While group differences in temporary employment risk changed throughout the observation period to the detriment of lower-educated workers, group differences in vulnerability to temporary employment increased specifically during the early life course. Overall, temporary employment explains approximately 9% of the change in the wage gap between workers with different levels of educational attainment by the age of 38 relative to age 28 in the Netherlands.

Occupations, organizations, and the structure of wage inequality in the Netherlands, Research in Social Stratification and Mobility, 70, (2020).
(with Thijs Bol)
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Graphical abstract occ_org_percentiles
Abstract Recent studies have identified both occupations and organizations as important structures underpinning wage inequality in the labor market. In this article we investigate how the two structures might work together in explaining inequality. More specifically, we study how organizations affect between- and within-occupation inequality. Using a combination of Dutch linked employer-employee register data and the Dutch labor force survey, we find that organizations are more important in explaining wage differentials between occupations than wage inequality between workers with the same occupation. While organizations are far away from solely driving heterogeneity in pay among workers in the same occupation, we find that the sorting of high-paying occupations in high-paying firms (and vice versa) is an important mechanism by which both structures affect inequality. Our findings emphasize the importance of moving away from an isolated study of occupations or organizations towards an analytical integration of both structures for understanding wage inequality.

Work in Progress

Under Review

Boardroom Quotas and Gender Disparities in Pay and Representation: The Dutch Case
(with Sören Tumeltshammer (first author) and Zoltán Lippényi)
Preprint

Abstract There are ongoing discussions about whether corporate boardroom quotas impact gender equality within organizations beyond the level of leadership. We examine the impact of the Dutch target law – a weakly enforced quota policy applying to a wide range of firms – on gender wage disparities and female representation across organizational levels. Our findings are ambivalent: while the quota did not reduce the gender wage gap in targeted firms relative to comparable firms, it did increase women’s representation in higher organizational wage echelons below the board. Using linked employer-employee register data and both regression discontinuity and difference-in-differences designs, we show evidence of a gradual shift towards greater gender parity in top employee income quartiles, without corresponding wage equalization. These findings highlight how boardroom quotas, even with weak enforcement, can produce compositional shifts without equalization, providing new empirical evidence and theoretical insight into the mechanisms through which in-stitutional reforms shape inequality.

Leaving for More or Settling for Less: Gendered Salary Trajectories after Leaving Academia
(with Anne Maaike Mulders (first author), Bas Hofstra, and Jochem Tolsma)

Abstract As the population of PhDs increases, a growing share of researchers find employment outside of academia after doctorate receipt. This attrition is higher among women. While prior studies find that doctoral recipients who work outside academia tend to earn more, some only find these wage premiums for men. Such findings are primarily based on scholars who leave academia immediately after the PhD where wage inequality is often examined over a limited timeframe. We extend on these studies by examining the gendered salary developments among PhDs who have started a career in academia over a period up to 17 years after obtaining doctorate. We use survey data from 4,576 individuals who obtained doctorate at universities in the Netherlands, linked to longitudinal Dutch register data on salaries, job characteristics, and family composition. We detail our findings by examining different push and pull factors (i.e. temporary employment, work hours, having a young child, disciplinary background) that explain why men and women’s salaries may develop differently following a transition out of academia. Our results show that leaving academia initially increases wages, but slows wage growth over time. We find that women experience stronger immediate wage gains, but slower wage growth after a transition out of academia than men. While leaving academia may offer short-term financial benefits, particularly to women working part-time or on temporary contracts, it may ultimately limit their salary progression by restricting opportunities for promotion.

The effect of early tracking on relative age effects in education
(with Melline Somers (first author), Rolf van der Velden and Roxanne Korthals)

Abstract Most education systems regulate school entry by using a specific annual cut-off date to group children into starting cohorts. Prior research shows that relatively younger students often perform worse than their older peers, with this gap diminishing over time. However, this effect varies across countries. Our study analyses how early tracking influences performance gaps in math, science, and reading. Using TIMSS, PIRLS, and PISA data, we find that in early tracking countries, age-related inequalities decline more slowly than in late tracking countries. Policy responses could include delaying tracking or offering flexibility to address misallocations later.

In Preparation

Variability and change of the glass ceiling: An organizational approach using linked-employer-employee data

Graphical abstract withinq_all_2022
Abstract In its original conception, the metaphor of the glass ceiling has clear organizational roots. It describes a vertical form of job sex segregation by portraying the hidden, but systemic, barriers that prevent women from climbing career ladders within organizations. Yet, research that treats the glass ceiling as an organizational phenomenon has often been limited to single-firm or single-industry case studies due to data constraints. In this paper, I leverage administrative linked employer-employee earnings data from 2011 to 2023 to comprehensively describe variability and change of the glass ceiling in the total population of larger organizations in the Netherlands. I explicitly conceptualize the glass ceiling as an organization-level outcome captured by the under-representation of women in the highest-paid jobs within an organization. Based on earnings data available for all existing jobs, I fully reconstruct the existing job hierarchy in each organization and trace the distribution of men and women within it. I demonstrate the advantages of this approach by testing several hypotheses regarding the extent to which the glass ceiling varies both between organizations and within organizations across time.

Cracks in the glass ceiling? Interorganizational diffusion of gender diversity among company executives following quota regulation in the Netherlands
(with Zoltán Lippényi)

Abstract Women remain underrepresented in organizational leadership positions throughout the European Union. To achieve a broad representation of women in top management, several European governments have introduced quotas for women on boards of large and highly visible private companies. A key assumption behind these policies is that their impact extends beyond the few directly targeted companies and spills over to other firms, resulting in widespread progress toward gender equality. However, spillover to other non-targeted firms remains understudied. Using administrative data on the total population of Dutch non-financial companies and the appointment of company directors between 2011 and 2022, we apply a heterogeneous diffusion model to assess how gender diversity in organizational leadership spreads across the wider population of private firms following the introduction of a weakly enforced quota for women on boards in the Netherlands. We study whether compliance by companies directly targeted by the quota influences other non-targeted but socially proximate firms to adopt similar practices. We analyse whether compliance norms are transmitted through inter-firm connections by considering three plausible conduits of diffusion: organizational fields, spatial proximity, and boardroom interlocks. Our analyses contribute to the understanding of the role of weakly enforced regulations in shaping broader organizational behaviour and provide insights into how gender diversity in corporate leadership can diffuse across the wider population of private firms. The results have implications for policymaking by highlighting the extent to which quota policies can result in widespread change, even in the absence of stringent enforcement.

Dissertation

Inequality at work: Occupations, organizations, and the wage distribution, University of Amsterdam, (2024).
Thesis

cover_dissertation
Abstract The occupational structure, the aggregate distribution of workers across different job roles that link people to pay, has long served as the dominant framework for understanding the unequal allocation of economic rewards in society. At the same time, recent empirical trends indicate that organizations are accountable for rising wage inequality in many countries. Organizations represent social spaces where economic resources are pooled and decisions regarding their distribution across workers are negotiated. Based on quantitative analyses of large-scale administrative data, this dissertation unpacks how occupations - ‘what’ people work - and organizations - ‘where’ people work - intersect during the formation of wage inequality. It addresses questions regarding the aggregate structure of wage inequality and studies how individual life chances are shaped by occupations and organizations in the Netherlands.

Other

Database international school system characteristics and flexibility indicators: Manual, ROA Technical Reports No. 003, (2024).
(with Melline Somers)
Database