Gender Equality on the Labour Market in France: A Slow Convergence Hampered by Motherhood

Abstract

[eng] In France since the 1970s, the growth in labour force has been driven largely by that of women’s participation in the labour market and the fact that they interrupt their careers less often after motherhood. Their level of education has also risen considerably, and they have, on average, been more highly educated than men since the 1990s. But these developments did not result in reducing the gender pay gap to what might have been expected: the average hourly wage gap in the private sector has remained around 20% since the mid-1990s. In this average gap, the share explained by differences in human capital (education, experience) was cancelled out and even reversed between 1968 and 2015. The persistence of the wage gap now appears to be mainly linked to the consequences of motherhood. A child’s arrival causes mothers a loss of annual income largely due to adjustments in their working time. This penalty is higher for mothers whose wages are at the bottom of the wage distribution.