On the persistence of the gender unemployment gap: evidence from eight OECD countries

Abstract

We examine the extent of persistence in the gender unemployment gap of eight OECD countries: Australia, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States using data over the period 1965 to 2002. Although we are unable to reject the unit root null hypothesis for all countries with the exception of Finland and Italy, the half-life measure suggests that the extent of persistence is relatively low for all countries.