The Gender Gap in Early Career Wage Growth

In the UK the gender pay gap on entry to the labour market is approximately zero but after ten years after labour market entry, there is a gender wage gap of almost 25 log points. This paper explores the reason for this gender gap in early-career wage growth, considering three main hypotheses - human capital, job-shopping and 'psychological' theories. Human capital factors can explain about 12 log points, job-shopping about 1.5 log points and the psychological theories about half a log point. But a substantial unexplained gap remains: women who have continuous full-time employment, have had no children and express no desire to have them earn about 12 log points less than equivalent men after 10 years in the labour market.