The Glass Ceiling in Europe:Why Are Women Doing Badly in the Labour Market?

Average gender pay gaps have absorbed the interest of economists for many years. Morerecently studies have begun to explore the degree to which observed gender wage gapsmight differ across the wages distribution. The stylised facts from these studies,summarised in the first part of the paper, are that the gender pay gap in Europe istypically increasing across the wages distribution. This finding - more pronounced in theprivate than the public sector - has been interpreted as a glass ceiling effect. Theexistence of this glass ceiling suggests that the average gender pay gap in Europe ismainly due to the gender gap towards the top of the wages distribution. What explainsthese stylised facts? We briefly outline some relevant hypotheses in the second part of thepaper. A fundamental challenge for labour economists is to identify the extent to whichthese stylised facts are due to policies and institutions, discrimination, to otherunobservable factors, or to fundamental differences between men and women. Finally,we briefly summarise the policy initiatives that might be introduced to deal with genderwage gaps.