This paper provides new estimates for male-female earnings differentials in Russia, incorporating the use of the Heckman (Econometrica 47: 153–161, 1979) two-step procedure for sample selection bias. This is a necessary adjustment in the case of female earnings because women who participate in the labour market may be a non-random sub-set of those who could work. This is a technique that enables the participation decision of women to be modelled and their earnings corrected for self-selection. The gender gap is then calculated using Oaxaca (International Economic Review 14: 693–709, 1973) and Reimers’ (Review of Economics and Statistics 65: 570–579, 1983) methods. The results indicate that the unexplained part of the earnings differential is smaller than in other studies that did not correct for sample selection.