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This study investigated the gender wage gap in Nigeria by analysing two waves of household
surveys (in 2003–2004 and 2018–2019) in order to understand the dynamics or polarisation of the labour market
in Nigeria in terms of the gender wage gap over time.
Design/methodology/approach – The study applied an extension of Oaxaca–Blinder decomposition that
relies on the re-centred influence function (RIF) regressions to analyse the gender wage gap at all points along
the wage distribution.
The results unambiguously show that there is a significant gender wage gap in Nigeria at all points
along the wage distribution, such that for the two surveys used and after nearly two decades, men still earn
more than women. That is, the log wage difference between males and females is statistically significant at all
points between the 10th and the 90th quantiles. In 2003–2004 period, the authors found that most of the wage
difference was significantly accounted for by the wage structure effect, whilst the composition effect was
negative and only significant at the bottom of the wage distribution. Since the 2018–2019 period, the authors
found that there has been a visible change such that most of the gender wage gap is now accounted for by the
composition effect at all points along the wage distribution. Another interesting finding is that there has been a
general decline in the gender wage gap along the entire wage distribution, such that inequality was higher in
2003–2004 than in 2018–2019. This decline is bigger at the top than at the bottom of the wage distribution. The
authors also found that, contrary to some of the studies on the wage gap, the raw gaps for the two surveys
appear to show inverted U-shape, but the gap has fallen quickly since the 2018–2019 period.
