ABSTRACT
The gender pay gap provides the starting point for comparing the level of gender pay equality across countries. As the gender pay gap is only a comparison of average male and female earnings, it is clearly a very crude measure of gender pay equality. Simple comparisons of the gender pay gap cannot provide information on whether the major problems for women’s employment lie in the pattern of occupational segregation, the structure of pay differentials between occupations and industries or in high levels of inequality within job areas or organisations. Nor can it tell us whether there is a gender pay gap for workers with similar levels of educational qualifications or similar levels of work experience. Nevertheless, the gender pay gap still provides a summary measure of progress towards gender equality in labour market outcomes. Moreover, given both the trend in all countries towards a higher share of women employed in higher-paid professional jobs, and a lower share of men in skilled jobs in manufacturing, a reasonable expectation is that, all other things being equal, the gender pay gap should narrow. Consequently, the recording of no change in the gender pay ratio may in fact disguise a worsening of gender pay inequality within jobs of a similar skill level.
