City Research Online

Abstract

Our article examines different predictors of the gender pay gap at the mean and for different income groups. Using the United Kingdom Household Panel Survey (UKHLS), we provide a detailed analysis of the effects of individual work histories, with up to 40 years of retrospective data examined alongside other key indicators. Work histories provide a powerful means of measuring the long-term effects of reduced labour force attachment on pay for women and for men. We find that gendered differentials in work-history account for 29% of the gender pay gap at the mean and that the effects of women’s reduced attachment vary by income group. We find men to earn a higher wage penalty to part-time work-histories than women, and find no evidence of a penalty to part-time work more generally in poor households. We conclude that gender equalisation policies need to reflect divergent needs by income group.

Publication Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© The Author(s) 2025. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Cambridge Political Economy Society. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Publisher Keywords:	Gender pay gap, Sex-segregation, Work-history, Working-time
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General) H Social Sciences > HB Economic Theory
Departments:	School of Policy & Global Affairs School of Policy & Global Affairs > Sociology & Criminology
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

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