Open AccessThe gender gap in early‐career wage growth
Author(s) -
Manning Alan,
Swaffield Joanna
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
the economic journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 4.683
H-Index - 160
eISSN - 1468-0297
pISSN - 0013-0133
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-0297.2008.02158.x
Subject(s) - wage , sociology , gender gap , schools of economic thought , economics , political science , management , labour economics , neoclassical economics
In the UK the gender pay gap on entry to the labour market is approximately zero but ten years after labour market entry, there is a gender wage gap of almost 25 log points. This article explores the reason for this gender gap in early‐career wage growth, considering three main hypotheses – human capital, job‐shopping and ‘psychological’ theories. Human capital factors can explain about 11 log points, job‐shopping about 1.5 log points and the psychological theories up to 4.5 log points depending on the specification. But a substantial unexplained gap remains: women who have continuous full‐time employment, have had no children and express no desire to have them earn about 8 log points less than equivalent men after 10 years in the labour market.