Segregation and Gender Gaps through the UK's Great Recession

Abstract

Gender gaps in work respond to the business cycle. Although there are many potential explanations, we test the simplest. Is this because of the extent of segregation in work? We study gaps in employment, pay and hours worked. Our counterfactual-type analysis accounts for the specific role of combined gender segregation across industry sectors and occupations that existed at the onset of the Great Recession in the UK. The results contradict the existing narrative that men’s employment has been more harshly affected by the recession than women’s employment: gender segregation accounts for over two and a half times the actual fall in the gender gap between 2007 and 2011. Results for pay and hours gaps are more mixed. Segregation accounts for some of the fall in the pay gap, but does not explain the decline in the hours gap, nor the relatively greater rise in part-time work among men since 2007.