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

在英国《同工同酬法案》颁布近半个世纪后，男女薪酬的趋同缓慢且不完整。尽管性别工资差距(GWG)的趋势是趋同的，但对于任何给定的出生队列，GWG随着人们从20多岁到中年的年龄增长，随着家庭的形成而增长。因此，对全球工作组的解释往往侧重于妇女在分娩后离开带薪工作的时间，以及她们重返劳动力市场后在确定以前的工资水平方面所面临的困难。对于重返兼职工作的女性，薪酬处罚尤其明显。一些人坚持认为，这些模式反映了女性对工作与生活平衡的偏好，以及关于家务劳动分工的传统规范，而另一些人则指出了工作场所的歧视性做法。通过分析1958、1970和1989/90年出生于英国的具有全国代表性的队列数据，这项研究解决了知识方面的三个差距。首先，证据将延伸到工资和就业的年龄，而不是迄今为止所研究的年龄。其次，它将向后延伸，探索从儿童时期到劳动力市场经验的联系，创新地利用未得到充分利用的材料，包括生物测定指标。第三，我们将能够区分老龄化和在不同历史时期出生的男性或女性的影响。这是只有在数据跟踪多个队列的情况下才可能实现的。预计队列效应有三个原因：(I)出生在不同时期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年的那一批人在同工同酬和其他平等机会条款刚开始实施时离开了学校，而1970年的那一批人毕业时这些规定已经实施了十年。(2)男女之间的教育差距已经消失，甚至逆转，因此，男女之间因学历而获得的回报将在几代人之间发生显著变化。(3)对妇女参与劳动力市场和男子参与家务劳动的态度发生了转变。社会规范的这些变化，以及随之而来的公共政策的变化，为男女创造了以前所未有的方式将有偿工作、为人父母和休闲结合在一起的机会，对男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。这项研究将解决五个相关的问题：1.全球工作组在整个生命过程和出生队列中是什么样子的？在以后的生活中，它是否会发生变化？在生活中处于相同阶段的人之间，它在不同队列中的比较如何？2.GWG中有多少是由在一生中积累的人力资本(资历和工作经验)的差异所解释的？对于拥有相似人力资本属性的男性和女性来说，工资差距的过程在不同的年龄有什么不同？3.为人父母和照顾他人的责任在男女就业和薪酬差异的出现以及GWG如何在一生中保持方面发挥了什么作用？4.GWG在多大程度上可归因于男性和女性从事的工作类型，特别是在职业和兼职时间方面？5.童年属性和经历在决定随后的GWG中发挥了什么作用，童年的影响仍然重要吗？这项研究将全面剖析GWG的一生，在1958年这一群体中，年龄一直到61岁，以及出生时间跨度为40岁的三代人，为工资形成提供大量见解，这将有助于努力减轻过去不平等待遇的后果，并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.