Gender segregation: analysis across sectoral dominance in the UK labour market

Riccardo Leoncini (), Mariele Macaluso () and Annalivia Polselli ()
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Riccardo Leoncini: University of Bologna
Mariele Macaluso: University of Bologna
Annalivia Polselli: University of Essex

Empirical Economics, 2024, vol. 67, issue 5, No 12, 2289-2343

Abstract: Abstract This paper aims to evaluate how changing patterns of sectoral gender segregation play a role in accounting for women’s employment contracts and wages in the UK between 2005 and 2020. We then study wage differentials in gender-specific dominated sectors. We found that the propensity of women to be distributed differently across sectors is a major factor contributing to explaining the differences in wages and contract opportunities. Hence, the disproportion of women in female-dominated sectors implies contractual features and lower wages typical of that sector, on average, for all workers. This difference is primarily explained by “persistent discriminatory constraints”, while human capital-related characteristics play a minor role. However, wage differentials would shrink if workers had the same potential and residual wages as men in male-dominated sectors. Moreover, this does not happen at the top of the wage distribution, where wage differentials among women working in female-dominated sectors are always more pronounced than those among men.

Keywords: Gender sectoral segregation; Labour markets; Gender inequality; Wage differentials (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J16 J2 J31 J61 J71 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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DOI: 10.1007/s00181-024-02611-1

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