Chapter 12. Gender Inequality

The chapter examines how the various dimensions of economic inequality between men and women are analyzed today. Beyond the gender wage gap—a central issue—and of course the still far from equal sharing of housework, the chapter also reviews research on gender inequality in access to self-employment, the gender gap in pensions, and the emerging topic of a gender gap in wealth, attempting to highlight the paths between the various facets of gender inequality. Throughout the review, much attention is paid to measurement issues, the scope of empirical evidence, and to limitations due either to the small number of large and comparable data sets or to conventional approaches that limit the possibilities to compare men and women.