Labour Market Intermittency and Its Effect on Gender Wage Gap in Spain

Abstract

The current economic crisis is having a profound impact from a gender perspective on the traditional Spanish labour market model, as women are currently assuming a more active role in comparison to their male counterparts. Nevertheless important gender differences still remain, especially in wages. The objective of this paper is to analyze how gender differences in labour market interruptions explain gender wage gap in Spain. We use the information from the Muestra Continua de Vidas Laborales (CSWL), from years 2005 to 2010. With this source of data it is possible to define an index to control for the whole information from any type of employment interruption. This index is used to describe the relationship between trajectories and situation in labour market, and also to assess their influence on earnings. Our main findings show that interruptions of employment have a negative impact on wages and they explain part of the observed differences in gender wage gap.

Keywords

• labour market trajectories
• interruptions
• index of intermittency
• gender wage differentials