Evidence on new technologies and wage inequality in France

Abstract

Using individual data from the French Labor Force Survey and the Complementary Survey on Working Conditions for 1998, we analyze earnings inequalities along the wage distribution between workers using novel technologies (ICT) at their job and those not using them. We estimate quantile regressions with technological dummies and carry out a decomposition analysis, both at the aggregate level and by occupations. At the aggregate level, most of the wage gap between both populations is explained by the divergence in their labor characteristics. In jobs where ICT are not very diffused, the technological premium is larger than in jobs characterized by a large presence of novel technologies. Whereas in the former type of jobs, the technological premium is mainly justified by a divergence in the labor market characteristics between ICT users and non users, in positions characterized by a wide presence of novel technologies the technological premium responds rather to a divergence in the returns to identical characteristics.