Abstract

Despite considerable improvements over the last few decades, women still suffer from a substantially weaker labour market position than men across all OECD countries. The preordainment of one’s chances of labour market success by gender not only goes against basic notions of fairness, but also entails significant economic costs of not fully exploiting the talents of women. The average gender wage gap across the OECD amounted to 13% in 2018. Moreover, while the employment gap has continued to narrow, further reductions in the wage gap have become increasingly difficult to achieve as the skills gap has been largely or completely closed in most countries. Further progress may therefore require paying more attention to the jobs that women have access to along their career and the firms in which they work.