In their chapter on gender inequality, Andrew et al. (2021) highlight heterogeneity in women’s economic outcomes, focusing primarily on level of education. Participation, hours and earnings are all greater for more highly educated women, meaning that as education levels have increased among women, the total earnings gap between men and women has reduced. But nevertheless, earnings gaps persist. Moreover, as a result of their higher earnings potential, the impact of starting a family is relatively greater for more highly educated women, and wage gaps between more highly educated men and women have grown while those between less educated men and women have converged, due in part to the declining earnings of lower educated men. Their analysis points to the failure of arguments round specialisation to explain the differential division of labour; and instead, they highlight the importance of norms in maintaining gendered inequalities in the division of paid and unpaid work, which drives much of the lifetime inequality gaps.
Cite this as:
Nandi, A. and Platt, L. (2023), ‘Gender, immigration and ethnicity’, IFS Deaton Review of Inequalities, https://ifs.org.uk/inequality/gender-immigration-and-ethnicity