Gender, motivation, experience and wages

Using data from the British Household Panel Survey, 1991-97 this paper investigates the structure of the female wage equation and the gender wage differential. The discriminatory portion of the gender wage differential is overstated by over 40% when inadequate measures of female labour market experience are included in the wage equation. The degree of labour market motivation, aspirations and constraints are found to have a significant impact on the female wage. Moreover, the impact of time out of the labour market varies across gender, activity undertaken while out, labour market motivation and the degree of male occupational domination.