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On why the gender employment gap in Britain has stalled since the early 1990s

Author

Listed:
  • Giovanni Razzu

    (Department of Economics, University of Reading)

  • Carl Singleton

    (Department of Economics, University of Reading)

  • Mark Mitchell

    (School of Economics, University of Edinburgh)

Abstract

Using over four decades of British micro data, this paper looks at how the narrowing gender employment gap stalled in the early 1990s. Changes to the structure of employment between and within industry sectors impacted the gap at approximately constant rates throughout the period, and does not account for the stall. Instead, changes to how women's likelihood of paid work was affected by their partners' characteristics explains most of the gap's shift in trend. Increases in women's employment when they had children or achieved higher qualifications continued to narrow the gap even after it had stalled overall.

Suggested Citation

  • Giovanni Razzu & Carl Singleton & Mark Mitchell, 2019. "On why the gender employment gap in Britain has stalled since the early 1990s," Economics Discussion Papers em-dp2019-02, Department of Economics, University of Reading, revised 01 Sep 2021.
    • Handle: RePEc:rdg:emxxdp:em-dp2019-02
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    Cited by:

    1. Riccardo Leoncini & Mariele Macaluso & Annalivia Polselli, 2023. "Gender Segregation: Analysis across Sectoral-Dominance in the UK Labour Market," Papers 2303.04539, arXiv.org, revised Dec 2023.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    gender employment gaps; structural change; micro time series dataset; UK labour market; labour supply;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J21 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure

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