Gender employment discrimination: Greece and the United Kingdom

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors affecting the labour market status of females in Greece and the UK respectively and also attempts to explore what accounts for the differences in the employment status between males and females. In particular, the study seeks to assess whether these differences can be explained by employees' endowments or by discrimination in the labour market. Design/methodology/approach – Labour Force Survey (LFS) data are used to examine the impact of observable characteristics on female labour market participation, unemployment, and self-employment through the use of logit models. An extension of the Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition technique is used to estimate the gender employment discrimination gap. Findings – Clear evidence of gender differences was found in both countries, although differences are substantially larger in the case of Greece. Evidence of female employment discrimination was also found in both labour markets. Originality/value – The paper explores the factors affecting the labour market situation of females and, for the first time, assesses the level of gender employment discrimination in Greece and the UK analysing the differences between the unemployment rates of males and females.