LAUSR

To provide quantitative attention to the correlates of the gender gap in illegal pay. Guided by the literatures on the gendered nature of offending, illegal earnings, and the gender gap in legal pay, we ask: what factors are associated with the gender gap in illegal pay? We use the Delaware Decision Making Study, a sample of incarcerated offenders, to unpack the gender gap in illegal pay with the Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition technique. The gender gap in illegal pay is partly accounted for by criminal analogs—criminal capital and psychosocial attributes—to correlates for the gender gap in legal pay and differences in reward structures. Race also emerges as an important factor. The disadvantage women face in the legal workforce extends to illegal markets, and our understanding about the gender gap in legal pay can be translated to criminal contexts.