Does the Gender Wage Gap Originate at Labor Market Entry? Evidence from South Korea

When in the lifecycle does a large gender wage gap emerge? South Korea has the largest aggregate gender pay gap (29%) in the OECD. Among recent college graduates the conditional gap is only 3.3% over 2008-2019, falling from 3.4% to 2.5%. Correcting for differential selection into employment with semiparametric and machine learning methods leaves it unchanged. Nonparametric and semiparametric bounds contain the point estimates. Selection-corrected quantile regression shows that the remaining entry-level gap is concentrated at the top of the distribution. In Korean panel data the corrected gap widens severalfold across the prime-age workforce, where the selection correction becomes first order. Korea’s gender wage disparity is mostly generated after labor market entry.