This research evaluates the distributional impact of the Japanese Equal Employment Opportunity Act (EEOA). It employs the methodology based in quantile regressions by Melly (2005) to decompose the gender wage gap at several quantiles for cohorts that entered the labor market around the time the EEOA came into effect in 1986. The data used in the main analysis comes from the Employment Status Survey of 1997 and 2002, and the robustness of the results is evaluated employing 2002 and 2007 data. The results show that the gender wage gap shrunk at the lowest income quantiles, mostly due to an improvement in the relative return to characteristics of women. Important changes in the educational level of male workers are observed, which are believed to be a response to the increased competition by better-educated women in managerial positions, and to shifts in the marriage market. An examination by sample segments shows that the largest fluctuations in the wage gap across all quantiles are observed among high school graduates and regular workers. Although the conclusions are robust, the contributions of the different components of the decomposition are affected by the point in time in which cohorts are observed.

中文翻译：

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日本平等就业机会法对性别工资差距的分配影响

本研究评估了日本平等就业机会法案 (EEOA) 的分配影响。它采用基于 Melly (2005) 分位数回归的方法来分解 1986 年 EEOA 生效前后进入劳动力市场的队列的几个分位数的性别工资差距。 主要分析中使用的数据来自1997 年和 2002 年的就业状况调查，并使用 2002 年和 2007 年的数据评估结果的稳健性。结果表明，性别工资差距在最低收入分位数处缩小，主要是由于女性特征的相对回报有所改善。观察到男性工人的教育水平发生了重大变化，这被认为是对受过良好教育的女性在管理职位上竞争加剧的反应，以及婚姻市场的转变。按样本细分的检查表明，所有分位数的工资差距波动最大的是高中毕业生和正式工人。尽管结论是可靠的，但分解的不同组成部分的贡献受到观察队列的时间点的影响。