Self-control and risk aversion in the Australian gender wage gap

We examine the effects of self-control and risk aversion on the gender wage gap in Australia. We find that both self-control and risk aversion play a significantly greater role in predicting the Australian gender wage gap. We also find that self-control affects both the explained and unexplained parts of the wage decomposition whereas risk aversion impacts only the explained part. Furthermore, our results show that self-control retains its importance despite inclusion of the Big Five personality traits. Finally, the results also suggest that the omission of risk aversion has a greater impact on the measurement of the gender wage gap compared to the other two as its inclusion leads to the overall unexplained wage gap falling to about half of the unexplained wage gap measured without it.