On Why Gender Employment Equality in Britain Has Stalled Since the Early 1990s

Abstract

Using over four decades of British micro data, this paper asks why progress in closing the gender employment rate gap has stalled since the early 1990s. We find that how partner characteristics affected women's likelihood of employment explain most of the gap's shift in trend. Instead, changes to the structure of employment both between and within industry sectors impacted the gap at approximately constant rates throughout the period. There is evidence that continuing improvements in women's employment when they had children or higher qualifications worked towards narrowing the gap, even after progress overall had stalled.