We investigate the role of training in reducing the gender wage gap using the British Household Panel Survey. On the basis of a life-cycle model and using tax and welfare benefit reforms as a source of exogenous variation, we evaluate the role of formal training and experience in defining the evolution of wages and employment careers, conditional on education. Training is potentially important in compensating for the effects of children, especially for women who left education after completing high school, but does not fundamentally change the wage gap resulting from labor market interruptions following child birth.
Authors
Richard Blundell
Richard is Co-Director of the Centre for the Microeconomic Analysis of Public Policy (CPP) and Senior Research Fellow at IFS.
Costas Meghir
Costas is a Research Fellow of the IFS and a Professor of Economics at Yale University and a Visiting Professor at University College London.
Monica Costa Dias
Monica is a Deputy Research Director and Professor of Economics at the University of Bristol, with an interest in Labour, Family and Public Economics.
David Goll
More from IFS
Understand this issue
Policy analysis
Academic research
