Gender Wage Gap at a glance: UK 2006-2007

Over the past decades the attention devoted to gender discrimination in the labour market by social scientists has increased significantly. Many social, cultural and economic changes has influenced women’s participation. As Harkness (1996: 1) points out, “Rising female labour-force participation has been one of the most striking changes to have occurred in industrialised countries’ labour markets over recent decades”. Though the availability of new jobs has to be considered as one of the crucial factors, earnings disparities and differences in career advancement should be taken into account. Harkness (ibid.: 2) identifies three main changes which are fundamental to understand and explain the gender gap: the increasing number of women who opt for full time jobs and decide to acquire high level of education on one hand; a decreasing number of female workers who have one or more own children in household on the other hand. At the same time, several modifications occurred in the labour market have contributed to augment the differences in earnings between men and women, such as “the shifting structure of demand for labour” (ibid.: 2). Even though gender discrimination in labour markets might potentially be measured in several ways, the purpose of this paper is to analyse the impact that some specific factors may have on monthly wage . To do so, two simple regression models will be designed and attention will be devoted to the different ways in which individual and social features could affect earnings.