Professor Meurs will discuss the outcomes of recent research into the consequences that children and child-related time out of the labour market have on the gender wage gap in France. The research pays particular attention to the impact on the accumulation and composition of human capital in females, and is based on the French survey ‘Families and Employers’. The project measured the key determinants of the wages of men and women, including the penalties associated with unemployment and time out of the labour market. It finds that there is a penalty attached to child-related time out of the labour market, which affects only women. For men and women aged from 39 to 49, the study decomposes the gender wage gap and analyses it for two separate groups of women, those who have not and who have taken child-related time out. This reveals that the wage gap between men and women who have not taken time out is not explained by the explanatory variables in the model. In contrast, child-related time out explains most of the wage gap between the two groups of women. These findings contribute to ongoing discussions about female labour force participation and the gender wage gap in European labour markets.

 

Professor Dominique Meurs is a labour economist associated with the National Institute for Demographic Studies (Institut National Etudes Démographiques, INED) in Paris. She has published extensively on various labour market issues, including gender inequality in wages and earnings in France, pay gaps in the public sector across European countries, and public sector pay determination in the EU. She is currently engaged in a project that investigates the integration of first and second generation migrants in France and Germany.

 

 

To view the flyer for this event please see: Child-related Career Interruptions and the Gender Wage Gap in France