This paper offers a new representation of discrimination on the job market based on the most recent findings in the socio-psychological academic literature about human behaviour. Put it simply, it is assumed that the agents prefer working with people like themselves. This "affinity" principle is...

We examine differences in the intensity of employer priors against men and women with Arabic names in Sweden by testing how much more work experience is needed to eliminate the disadvantage of having an Arabic name on job applications. Employers are first sent CVs of equal merits in a...

By considering the case of Italy we show that despite much rhetoric and expectations about the fact that women have gradually overcome men in terms of educational attainments, they still lack behind in terms of the main skills and competencies that can profitably be used in the market. On the...

Active ageing strategies have so far strongly focussed on increasing senior workers employment rates through pension reforms to develop incentives to retire later on the one hand, and labour market policies on the other hand. Most measures are based on the dominant male trajectory of work and...

This paper analyses disparity in women’s pay across 20 European countries using EU-SILC 2006. First, a selectivity-adjusted gender pay gap is computed and examined in each of the countries. Next, the impact of parenthood is analysed. We show that women suffer a wage disadvantage compared with...

This paper studies labor market discriminations as an agency problem. It sets up a principal-agent model of a firm, where the manager is a taste discriminator and has to make unobservable hiring decisions that determine the shareholder’s profits because workers differ in skills. The paper...

The main objective of this paper is to present new empirical elements to the debate on sources of wage differentials. We investigate issues specifically related to the role of employer’s characteristics in the wage setting process. Findings show that combined industry effects explain almost no...

All over Europe, parental leaves are essentially taken by women which leads to perpetuate gender inequalities in the labour market. The economic literature illustrates the issues at stake and is presented in this article to contextualise the analysis of the Belgian parental leave system. The...

Since the 90s European discourse tends to present flexibility as the magic tool to raise employment, even if in a context of crisis, more flexible workers will be dismissed faster. The purpose of this paper is to assess the evolution of working time arrangements in Belgium as of 1992 from a...

This paper analyses disparity in women’s pay across 25 European countries using EU-SILC 2005. First, the gender pay gap is examined. Next, the impact of parenthood is analysed. We show that women suffer a wage disadvantage compared with men all over Europe, except for Poland. Motherhood...