LA BRECHA SALARIAL DE GÉNERO ENTRE LOS UNIVERSITARIOS RECIÉN TITULADOS.

This paper analyzes the gender wage gap for recent graduates in formal jobs in Colombia emphasizing the role that degree subject plays in explaining the gender wage gap at early stages of the labour market experience. To conduct the analysis we took advantage of a unique dataset that contains administrative records for individuals observed in formal employment one year after graduation from college and that contains detailed information for degree subjects. The results suggest that, on average the wage gap against women is about 11%, from which 40% is explained by gender diferences in the type of degree chosen. By using a distributional gender wage gap decomposition we find evidence not only of an increasing gap at diferent levels of the wage distribution but evidence that only 30% of it is explained by degree subject. This result also supports the existence of a glass ceiling phenomenon from early stages of labour market experience which is of particular interest for policy makers given that, some of the explanations given to the glass ceiling efect are related to experience and promotions, characteristics that are not significantly diferent for recent graduates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]