Decent Work: Gender and Equal Opportunity Policies and Outcomes

Abstract

This chapter reviews work that examines the potential causes of inequality for women in employment in the UK. Amongst developed economies and based on mean hourly earnings, the UK has one of the highest gender pay gaps (ILO, 2018). The UK, therefore, illustrates some of the key theoretical and practical issues associated with greater gender equality that affect other countries to varying degrees. This chapter sets out key theoretical perspectives on gender inequality, summarizes important research, identifies research gaps and provides an agenda for future research. It highlights how there is no simple explanation for the disparities in pay between men and women; these disparities persist in the UK and elsewhere. Theories and empirical analyses, therefore, need to expand to identify other potential causes of gender inequality, extending ‘upwards’ to examine how the nature of firms varies across countries and ‘downwards’ to assess how union representatives influence equal opportunity policies in organizations.