The gender pay gap in Europe : an empirical study of the differences in earnings between genders

Abstract

This thesis uses panel data for several European countries to examine factors that affect the gender pay gap, and to examine how the gender pay gap evolves with age. The anal- ysis finds a strong correlation between age and the gender pay gap. The differences in pay between men and woman is found to be small for workers in their 20’s, before a steep increase in the male wage premium is observed for workers in their 30’s and a subsequent stabilisation. Further analysis find the percentage of the population in the age group 25-29 to have a strong negative effect on the overall gender pay gap across Europe. This result is robust to different model specifications. I also find indications that the pay gap is positively correlated with the GDP per capita. Additionally, the effect of female educational attainment is found to have a negative effect on the pay gap.