The narrowing of the gender wage gap is an important indicator of progress toward gender equality. This pay gap narrowed substantially during the 1980s and then more slowly during the 1990s and early 2000s. After 2007, wage convergence ceased entirely. Why?
Conventional analyses attribute changes in the female-male wage ratio to corresponding changes in the work experience and qualifications of the female workforce. My research broadens this focus by examining how changes in women’s occupational career paths, and in the relative earnings of the occupations to which those career paths lead, impacted the gender wage gap over the period 1979 to 2015.