A GENDER ANALYSIS OF THE MINIMUM WAGE EFFECTS UPON EMPLOYMENT IN ROMANIA

Socio-economic approaches on the minimum wage are more often than not contradictory. Supporters of the minimum wage believe that this is a way to increase the wellbeing of individuals, while the opponents believe that the only thing that the minimum wage does is to reduce the employment rate and/or to increase "working under the table". In this context, our paper focuses on the role of the minimum wage on the labour market and its direct effects upon employment in Romania. We also identify several particularities at gender level by elaborating an analysis of the minimum wage effects upon male and female employment in Romania. For that we used quarterly data for the period 2000 Q1 - 2014 Q3 and built two employment equations differentiated by gender. Our results are consistent with the international literature and suggest the presence of some gender differences in the way the minimum wage effects are perceived by the employed population.