How Does the Gender Wage Gap Vary Over the Life Course and Across Cohorts?

英国《同工同酬法案》（Equal Pay Act）出台近半个世纪后，男女薪酬的趋同速度缓慢且不完整。尽管性别工资差距（GWG）的趋势是趋同的，但对于任何一个特定的出生队列来说，随着人们从20多岁到中年，随着家庭组建的增长，GWG会上升。因此，对GWG的解释往往侧重于妇女在分娩后离开有偿工作的时间，以及她们在返回劳动力市场时确定以前的工资水平所面临的困难。对于重返兼职工作的妇女来说，薪酬惩罚尤其明显。一些人坚持认为，这些模式反映了妇女对工作与生活平衡的偏好和关于家务分工的传统规范，而另一些人则指出了工作场所的歧视性做法。通过分析1958年、1970年和1989/90年出生的英国人的全国代表性队列数据，本研究解决了三个知识缺口。首先，证据将扩展到比迄今为止研究的年龄更晚的工资和就业。其次，它将向后延伸，探索从童年时期到劳动力市场经验的联系，创新地利用包括生物特征指标在内的未充分利用的材料。第三，我们将能够区分衰老和在不同历史时期生为男性或女性的影响。这是只有通过数据跟踪多个队列才有可能实现的。预测群体效应有三个原因：(i)在不同时期出生的人在其一生中面临不同的劳动力市场和政策条件。例如，1958年出生的那一代人在同工同酬和其他平等机会条款首次实施时离开了学校，而1970年出生的那一代人在完成学业时，这些条款已经实施了10年。男女之间的教育差距已经消失，甚至出现了逆转，因此资历所带来的回报将在男女之间的代际间发生显著变化。对妇女参加劳动力市场和男子参加家务劳动的态度已经改变。社会规范的这些变化，加上随之而来的公共政策的变化，为男子和妇女创造了以迄今不可能的方式把有酬工作、为人父母和休闲结合起来的机会，对男子和妇女在整个生命过程中的生活选择和收入模式产生了不确定的后果。该研究将解决五个相关问题：1。GWG在整个生命过程和出生队列中是什么样子的？它在以后的生活中会发生变化吗？在同一阶段的人群中，它是如何在不同的人群中进行比较的？2. 在人的一生中积累的人力资本（资格和工作经验）的差异占GWG的多少？对于人力资本属性相似的男性和女性来说，不同年龄的工资差距过程有何不同？父母和照顾子女的责任在男女在就业和薪酬方面的差异中发挥了什么作用？ GWG如何在一生中持续存在？4. 全球工作总值有多少可归因于男性和女性所从事的工作种类，特别是就职业和兼职工作时间而言？5. 童年的属性和经历在决定随后的GWG中起什么作用？童年的影响是否仍然对成年早期的经历有影响？该研究将对个人一生的GWG进行全面剖析，以1958年的队列为例，直到61岁，以及跨越40年的三代人，提供关于工资形成的许多见解，这将有助于减轻过去不平等待遇的后果，促进现在和未来的性别平等。

Nearly half a century after Britain's Equal Pay Act the convergence of men's and women's pay is slow and incomplete. Although the trend in the gender wage gap (GWG) is towards convergence, for any given birth cohort the GWG rises as people age from their twenties to mid-life, growing upon family formation. Thus, explanations of the GWG tend to focus on the time women spend away from paid work after childbirth and the difficulties they face in establishing their previous pay level on returning to the labour market. Pay penalties are particularly pronounced for women returning to part-time employment. Some people maintain that these patterns reflect women's preferences for work-life balance and conventional norms about the division of domestic labour, while others point to discriminatory practices in the workplace.By analysing nationally representative cohort data for people born in Britain in 1958, 1970 and 1989/90 this study addresses three gaps in knowledge. First, evidence will be extended to wages and employment at later ages than has been studied hitherto. Second, it will be extended backwards to explore linkages from childhood years to labour market experience, making innovative use of under-utilised material including biometric indicators. Third, we will be able to distinguish between the effects of ageing and of having been born male or female at different points in history. This is something that is only possible with data tracking more than one cohort. There are three reasons to anticipate cohort effects:(i) People born at different times are exposed to different labour market and policy conditions during their lifetimes. For instance, the 1958 cohort left school when the Equal Pay and other Equal Opportunities provisions were first being implemented whereas these had been in place for a decade when the 1970 cohort finished school. (ii) The education gap between men and women has disappeared and even reversed, such that the pay-off due to qualifications will have shifted markedly between men and women across the generations. (iii) Attitudes to women's participation in the labour market and to men's in domestic labour have shifted. These changes in social norms, together with attendant changes in public policy, have created opportunities for men and women to combine paid work, parenthood and leisure in ways not hitherto possible, with uncertain consequences for the life choices and earnings patterns of men and women across the life course. The study will address five related questions: 1. What does the GWG look like over the life course and across birth cohorts? Does it change later in life and how does it compare across cohorts for people at the same points in their life? 2. How much of the GWG is accounted for by differences in human capital (qualifications and work experience) accumulated over the life course? How different does the course of the wage gap look across ages for men and women with similar human capital attributes?3. What role do parenthood and caring responsibilities play in the emergence of differences between men and women in employment and pay and how the GWG persists over the life-course? 4. How much of the GWG is attributable to the sorts of jobs undertaken by men and women, particularly in respect of occupation and part-time hours? 5. What role do childhood attributes and experiences play in determining the subsequent GWG and do childhood influences still matter having accounted for early adulthood experiences? The study will provide a comprehensive anatomy of the GWG across individuals' life-times, up to the age of 61 in the case of the 1958 cohort, and across three generations with births spanning 40 years, offering numerous insights into wage formation which will assist in efforts to mitigate the consequences of unequal treatment in the past and promote gender equality in the present and future.