Abstract:
In the UK the gender pay gap on entry to the labour market is approximately zero but afterten years after labour market entry, there is a gender wage gap of almost 25 log points. Thispaper explores the reason for this gender gap in early-career wage growth, considering threemain hypotheses - human capital, job-shopping and 'psychological' theories. Human capitalfactors can explain about 12 log points, job-shopping about 1.5 log points and thepsychological theories about half a log point. But a substantial unexplained gap remains:women who have continuous full-time employment, have had no children and express nodesire to have them earn about 12 log points less than equivalent men after 10 years in thelabour market.