Gender, extra-firm mobility, and compensation attainment in the United States and Hong Kong

Abstract

Using data from 739 U.S. managers and professionals and 593 Hong Kong Chinese managers and professionals we examined the moderating effects of gender on the relationship between changing employers and compensation attainment. While there were no gender-based compensation differences early in the careers of these individuals (in 1991), large pay differences favoring men were observed in 1999 only among those who had followed an external labor market strategy. These results demonstrate that this phenomenon is not isolated to labor markets of the United States and strengthen the view that much of the observed pay differential favoring men has its origins in extra-firm mobility, not intra-firm gender discrimination. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.