Wage gender disparity by activity and skills: empirical evidence in Italy

Jueves, 9 de November de 2023, 17:00

«Reducing gender-based violence, sex discrimination and structural inequality between women and men represents one of the strategic goals of Europe and its member countries to achieve a Gender-Equal economy. Focusing on Italian economy, in the last decade the gender gap has narrowed but several criticisms endure in payment inequalities and labour segmentation, especially after the pandemic crisis. The literature demonstrates that policies meant to overcome the gender inequality can bring higher employment rates with consequences in poverty reduction and income growth, especially if they are designed to consider sectoral dissimilarities and skills and education level of workers. In this perspective, the webinar presented the results in terms of gender gap by activity and worker typology of theoretical exercises assuming different labour force dynamics and a positive economic growth rate. The theoretical simulations are carried out using a Computable General Equilibrium model based on the Social Accounting Matrix that incorporates gender specifications for the Italian economy. The results show that with labor force stability and exogenous economic growth, the level of employment increases for all skill types and gender, and the gender pay gap tends to narrow especially for low-skilled workers, in line with the main literature on the field. However, shocks on female labor force must be accompanied by demand side actions to avoid trade-off between Gender Pay Gap and Gender Employment Gap.»