The Gender Wage Gap in Europe: Job Preferences, Gender Convergence and Distributional Effects

The gender wage gap has declined over time. However, most of the remaining gap is unexplained, partly because of gender convergence in wage-determining characteristics. In this paper, we show the degree of convergence differs substantially across Europe. In some countries, predominantly in Eastern Europe, the gender wage gap is entirely unexplained. However, in other countries, differences between the characteristics of men and women explain a relatively large proportion of the wage gap. Gender differences in job preferences contribute 10% to the wage gap, which is more than job tenure, previous employment status or field of study. The role of job preferences is particularly strong at the top of the wage distribution.