{"type":"script","doc_desc":{"producers":[{"name":"Reproducibility WBG","abbr":"DECDI","affiliation":"World Bank - Development Impact Department","role":"Verification and preparation of metadata"}],"prod_date":"2026-06-26","version":"1"},"project_desc":{"authoring_entity":[{"name":"Ketki Sheth","affiliation":"University of Tennessee","email":"ksheth2@utk.edu"},{"name":"Saba Yifredew","affiliation":"Addis Ababa University","email":"saba.yifredew@aau.edu.et"},{"name":"Toni Weis","affiliation":"World Bank","email":"tweis@worldbank.org"}],"title_statement":{"title":"Reproducibility package for Gender Gaps In Pay And Advancement Within Firms: Evidence From Ethiopia\u2019s Financial Sector","idno":"RR_ETH_2026_679"},"data_statement":"All data is restricted and has not been included in the reproducibility package. For more details, please refer to the README file.","software":[{"name":"Stata","version":"19.0 MP"}],"scripts":[{"title":"Reproducibility package for Gender Gaps In Pay And Advancement Within Firms: Evidence From Ethiopia\u2019s Financial Sector","date":"2026-06","notes":"Computational reproducibility verified by Development Impact (DECDI) Analytics team, World Bank.","instructions":"See README in reproducibility package.","file_name":"RR_ETH_2026_679","zip_package":"RR_ETH_2026_679.zip","dependencies":"Stata dependencies are listed in the ado folder."}],"repository_uri":[{"name":"Reproducible Research Repository (World Bank)","uri":"https:\/\/reproducibility.worldbank.org"}],"production_date":"2026-06-26","abstract":"Gender gaps in pay and leadership roles are well documented across labor markets. However, the literature on low- and middle-income countries is limited, and it remains unclear whether these gaps reflect sorting into lucrative, high-skill sectors or differential career progression within those sectors. This paper examines gender differences in compensation, advancement, and career-relevant mechanisms within such a high-skill sector, focusing on finance in Ethiopia and using evidence from one of the country\u2019s largest commercial banks, which is estimated to account for roughly one-quarter of employment in the country\u2019s finance sector. Using six years of administrative records covering the universe of nearly 50,000 employees, combined with large-scale employee and manager surveys, we document substantial gender gaps in compensation and career advancement: women earn approximately 85% as much as men, are 80% less likely to hold supervisory roles, and are 68% less likely to hold managerial roles. These gaps are not explained by differences in education, experience, or internal performance evaluations. We find little support for commonly cited mechanisms emphasized in high-income settings, including gender differences in willingness to compete for promotions, negotiate, or access professional networks. Instead, gender differences emerge in access to career-enhancing opportunities and in constraints on work flexibility. Together, these findings suggest that gender gaps in advancement arise not from lower ambition or weaker effort, but from differences in exposure to advancement-relevant opportunities and in time allocation and geographic mobility, some of which may be amplified through supervisors\u2019 perceptions. The bank we study performs relatively well on aggregate gender indicators and has explicitly prioritized women\u2019s advancement, suggesting that our estimates are likely lower bounds on gender gaps elsewhere in the financial sector and that substantial disparities can ","geographic_units":[{"name":"Ethiopia","code":"ETH"}],"keywords":[{"name":"Gender Wage Gap"},{"name":"Career Advancement"},{"name":"Banking Sector"},{"name":"Ethiopia"}],"topics":[{"id":"J16","uri":"https:\/\/www.aeaweb.org\/econlit\/jelCodes.php?view=jel","vocabulary":"Journal of Economic Literature (JEL)","name":"Economics of Gender \u2022 Non-labor Discrimination","parent_id":"J1"},{"id":" J31","uri":"https:\/\/www.aeaweb.org\/econlit\/jelCodes.php?view=jel","vocabulary":"Journal of Economic Literature (JEL)","name":"Wage Level and Structure \u2022 Wage Differentials","parent_id":"J3"},{"id":" M51","uri":"https:\/\/www.aeaweb.org\/econlit\/jelCodes.php?view=jel","vocabulary":"Journal of Economic Literature (JEL)","name":"Firm Employment Decisions \u2022 Promotions","parent_id":"M5"},{"id":" O55","uri":"https:\/\/www.aeaweb.org\/econlit\/jelCodes.php?view=jel","vocabulary":"Journal of Economic Literature (JEL)","name":"Africa","parent_id":"O5"}],"output":[{"type":"Working Paper","description":"Policy Research Working Papers (PRWP)","title":"Gender Gaps In Pay And Advancement Within Firms: Evidence From Ethiopia\u2019s Financial Sector"}],"language":[{"name":"English","code":"EN"}],"technology_requirements":"Run time: 9 minutes","disclaimer":"The materials in the reproducibility packages are distributed as they were prepared by the staff of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development\/The World Bank. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this event do not necessarily reflect the views of the World Bank, the Executive Directors of the World Bank, or the governments they represent. The World Bank does not guarantee the accuracy of the materials included in the reproducibility package.","license":[{"name":"MIT License","uri":"https:\/\/opensource.org\/license\/mit"},{"name":"World Bank IGO Rider","uri":"https:\/\/github.com\/worldbank\/metadata-editor\/blob\/main\/WB-IGO-RIDER.md"}],"contacts":[{"name":"Ketki Sheth","affiliation":"University of Tennessee","email":"ksheth2@utk.edu"},{"name":"Reproducibility WBG","affiliation":"World Bank","email":"reproducibility@worldbank.org"}],"datasets":[{"name":"HR Records of Employees (2019\u20132024)","note":"Source:  Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE) (2019\u20132024).\nDescription: Snapshot data of employees shared in various rounds across multiple years. The HR records cover the full universe of the bank's employees from 2019 to 2024. These records were acquired sequentially in multiple rounds and include demographics, HR records and pay.\nAccess: September 2022 (raw\/emp_19_22.xlsx); July 2023 (raw\/emp_2023.xlsx, raw\/pay_2023.xlsx); February 2024 (raw\/pay_2024.xlsx,raw\/emp_2024.xlsx).\nFile location: raw\/emp_19_22.xlsx; raw\/emp_2023.xlsx; raw\/emp_2024.xlsx; raw\/pay_2023.xlsx; raw\/pay_2024.xlsx\n","access_type":"Data access was granted directly to the study authors by the data owners\/managers. It was obtained with a custom data license that does not allow for redistribution and it is not included in the reproducibility package.\n","license":"Custom License","citation":" Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE). 2019\u20132024.  \"HR Records of Employees.\" [dataset]. Unpublished data. Accessed September 20.\n"},{"name":"HR Records of Employees' Appraisal Data (2020\u20132022)","note":"Source:  Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE) (2023).\nDescription: Internal performance evaluation data of employees for 2020, 2021 and 2022.\nFile location: raw\/Appraisal.xlsx\n","access_type":"Data access was granted directly to the study authors by the data owners\/managers. It was obtained with a custom data license that does not allow for redistribution and it is not included in the reproducibility package.\n","license":"Custom License","citation":" Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE). 2023. \u201cHR Records of Employees' Appraisal Data (2020\u20132022)\u201d [dataset]. Unpublished data. Accessed February 2023.\n"},{"name":"HR Record Data on Gender","note":"Source: Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE) (2023).\nDescription: Separately shared during the cleaning process to rectify identified gender inconsistencies in the raw administrative files. The dataset merges with the full HR records dataset.\nFile location: raw\/Gender.dta\n","access_type":"Data access was granted directly to the study authors by the data owners\/managers. It was obtained with a custom data license that does not allow for redistribution and it is not included in the reproducibility package.\n","license":"Custom License","citation":" Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE). 2023. \u201cHR Record Data on Gender\u201d [dataset]. Unpublished data. Accessed July 2023."},{"name":"In-Person Employee and Supervisor Survey","note":"Source: Gender Innovation Lab (GIL), World Bank.\nDescription: Primary data collected by GIL World Bank through two distinct survey instruments administered to a subset of the workforce in Addis Ababa branches. Data received in May 2024. Surveys were commissioned via an agreement between the Partner Bank and the World Bank; redistribution is not permitted.\nFile location: raw\/Allemp_final.dta; raw\/perception_raw.dta\n","access_type":"Data access was granted directly to the study authors by the data owners\/managers. It was obtained with a custom data license that does not allow for redistribution and it is not included in the reproducibility package.\n","license":"Custom License","citation":" Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE). 2024. \u201cIn-Person Employee and Supervisor Survey\u201d [dataset]. Unpublished data. Accessed May 2024.\n"},{"name":"Online Employee Survey","note":"Source: Gender Innovation Lab (GIL), World Bank.\nDescription: A short online survey administered to employees across all regions of the bank through the bank's internal portal. Shared in May 2024. Surveys were commissioned via an agreement between the Partner Bank and the World Bank; redistribution is not permitted.\nFile location: raw\/online.xlsx\n","access_type":"Data access was granted directly to the study authors by the data owners\/managers. It was obtained with a custom data license that does not allow for redistribution and it is not included in the reproducibility package.\n","license":"Custom License","citation":" Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE). 2024. \u201cOnline Employee Survey\u201d [dataset]. Unpublished data. Accessed May 2024.\n"}],"reproduction_instructions":"To reproduce the findings in this paper, a replicator must:\n1. **Secure Access to Data:** Access the datasets not included in the package. See the Datasets section for more details.\n2. **Run the Package:** Update the working directory in line 18 of the do file `main`, and run it.\n\nSince the original data cannot be redistributed, the package includes the outputs produced by the replicators, which can be used to review the results presented in the paper.","technology_environment":"Paper exhibits were reproduced on a computer with the following specifications:\n\u2022 OS: Windows 11 Enterprise\n\u2022 Processor: Intel(R) Xeon(R) Gold 6226R CPU @ 2.90GHz (2.90 GHz) (2 processors)\n\u2022 Memory available: 16.0 GB"},"datacite":{"creators":[{"givenName":"Ketki","familyName":"Sheth","nameType":"Personal","affiliation":[{"name":"University of Tennessee","affiliationIdentifier":"https:\/\/ror.org\/032agg760","affiliationIdentifierScheme":"ROR","schemeUri":"https:\/\/ror.org"}]},{"givenName":"Saba","familyName":"Yifredew","nameType":"Personal","affiliation":[{"name":"Addis Ababa University","affiliationIdentifier":"https:\/\/ror.org\/038b8e254","affiliationIdentifierScheme":"ROR","schemeUri":"https:\/\/ror.org"}]},{"givenName":"Toni","familyName":"Weis","nameType":"Personal","affiliation":[{"name":"World Bank","affiliationIdentifier":"https:\/\/ror.org\/00ae7jd04","affiliationIdentifierScheme":"ROR","schemeUri":"https:\/\/ror.org"}]}],"titles":[{"lang":"en","title":"Reproducibility package for Gender Gaps In Pay And Advancement Within Firms: Evidence From Ethiopia\u2019s Financial Sector"},{"title":"RR_ETH_2026_679","titleType":"Other"}],"publisher":"World Bank","publicationYear":"2026","types":{"resourceType":"Reproducibility package","resourceTypeGeneral":"Other"},"url":"https:\/\/reproducibility.worldbank.org\/index.php\/catalog\/study\/RR_ETH_2026_679","language":"en"},"tags":[{"tag":"DOI"},{"tag":"Open Code"},{"tag":"Restricted Data"}],"schematype":"script"}