Mentoring and segregation: female-led firms and gender wage policies

We explore the impact of female employers and gender segregation on wages using a large longitudinal data set for Portugal. Female managers can act less discriminatory, protect and mentor female employees by paying them higher wages than male-led firms would do. We find that females can enjoy higher wages in female-led firms, the opposite being true for males. In both cases is a higher share of females in a firm reducing the wage level. These results are compatible with a theory where job promotion is an important factor of wage increases: if more females are to be mentored, less promotion slots are available for males, but also the expected chance of a female to be promoted is lower.