September 2024

IZA DP No. 17277: Equal Pay for Better Health: The Health Cost of the Gender Wage Gap

Susan L. Averett, Adam Biener, Olena Ogrokhina

This paper explores the relationship between gender wage gaps and women's overall health. Using data from the 2011-2019 Current Population Survey, we employ entropy balancing to create comparable samples of men and women and estimate wage gaps for full-time employed working-age women. Adjusting for individual, occupation, and industry characteristics, we estimate the association between wage gaps and self-rated health. Our results suggest that closing the wage gap results in a 1.2 percent reduction in women reporting poor or fair health, equivalent to nearly 170,000 fewer women. These effects are more pronounced for women with below-median wages or in male-dominated jobs.