IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ifs/ifsewp/98-09.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The changing distribution of male wages in the UK, 1966-1992

Author

Listed:
  • Amanda Gosling

    (Institute for Fiscal Studies and University of Kent)

  • Stephen Machin

    (Institute for Fiscal Studies)

  • Costas Meghir

    (Institute for Fiscal Studies and Yale University)

Abstract

This paper uses microeconomic data from the UK Family Expenditure Surveys (FES) and the General Household Surveys (GHS) to describe and explain changes in the distribution of male wages. Since the late 1970s wage inequality has risen very fast in the UK, and this rise is characterised both by increasing education and age differentials. We show that a large part of the changes in the UK can be summarised quite simply as increases in education differentials and a decline of growth of entry level wages which persist subsequently. This fact we interpret as cohort eects. We also show that, like in the US, an important aspect of rising wage inequality is increased within-group wage dispersion. Finally we use the GHS to evaluate the role of alternative education measures.

Suggested Citation

  • Amanda Gosling & Stephen Machin & Costas Meghir, 1998. "The changing distribution of male wages in the UK, 1966-1992," IFS Working Papers W98/09, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    • Handle: RePEc:ifs:ifsewp:98/09
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.ifs.org.uk
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kevin Denny & Harmon, Harmon & Sandra Redmond, 2000. "Functional literacy, educational attainment and earnings - evidence from the international adult literacy survey," IFS Working Papers W00/09, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    2. Dearden, Lorraine, 1999. "The effects of families and ability on men's education and earnings in Britain1," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 6(4), pages 551-567, November.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ifs:ifsewp:98/09. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Emma Hyman (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ifsssuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.