Women's Employment and Household Income Inequality

Abstract

This chapter assesses how rising female employment has influenced the overall growth in earnings inequality among couples in 17 high-income countries. It considers how female employment varies across countries, and how it differs for those in the bottom, middle, and top of the income distribution. In all countries studied, substantial differences in male and female employment, hours of work, and earnings, are found to persist, but with considerably more heterogeneity among women in low-income couple-headed families. Female earnings are found to have an equalizing effect on the distribution of earnings across households, in all of the countries studied. The chapter concludes that boosting female employment would have a greater influence on further reducing inequality than would eliminating the gender pay gap.