Policy: To close the pay gap, don’t *just* focus on types of jobs — focus on *firms*.

Support women’s access to high-paying firms, expand childcare & learn from the public sector.

Otherwise, the gap keeps rebuilding itself, one job move at a time.

Paper: shorturl.at/bFPas

Why is firm sorting so important in SA? We think poorer countries have a smaller formal sector, wider dispersion in firm premia, and a bigger firm-pay gender gap. We show correlations from regional SA data.

Importantly, women who are continuously employed (ie "stayers") switch firms just as often as men — but don’t move *up* as much.

In their 40s and 50s, that changes: once care burdens ease, women start making *more* upward moves than men, once these constraints are released.

Interestingly, churn (moving in and out of employment) is common — but men and women do it at similar rates. Women just land in lower-paying sectors such as education, retail, or personal care, and in lower-paying firms *within* sectors.

The gap isn’t mainly about occupations or even bargaining within firms — it’s about women being firms that pay *all* workers less.

Using tax data on the full formal workforce, we find the gender gap in "firm pay” grows rapidly during women’s 30s — child-rearing years — then narrows later.