Assessing the effects of ownership change on women and minority employees: Evidence from matched employer-employee data

While there have been numerous papers on the employment and wage effects of mergers and acquisitions, there has been no direct analysis of the impact of such ownership changes on minority and female workers. This is an unexplored 'equity' dimension of these transactions. We fill this gap by analyzing linked employer-employee data for the entire population of Swedish workers and approximately 16,000 manufacturing plants for the period 1985-1998. For each worker employed in these establishments (as well as the entire population of workers), we have data on gender, age, national origin, level of education, type of education, location, industrial sector, annual earnings, as well as each employee's complete work history during the period. We also have data on numerous plant and firm-level characteristics, which allows us to control for additional factors that might result in changes in labour composition and relative compensation. Our findings suggest that ownership change does not significantly alter the relative earnings and employment status of minority and female workers.