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Gender Wage Discrimination and Poverty in the EU

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  • Carlos Gradin
  • Coral del Rio
  • Olga Canto

Abstract

This paper analyzes the role of gender wage discrimination in household poverty rates in several European Union (EU) countries using the European Community Household Panel. In order to quantify the impact of discrimination on poverty, it proposes the construction of a counterfactual distribution of wages where discrimination against women has been removed. Using this new wage distribution, the study computes total household income and compares poverty rates in the absence of discrimination to those actually observed. The results show that, in general, discrimination against women plays a determinative role in the current levels of poverty in EU countries, although results by country show that this role differs in intensity and pattern. Further, the study finds that in EU countries the effect of discrimination on poverty risk dramatically increases for individuals in households that largely depend on working women' earnings.

Suggested Citation

  • Carlos Gradin & Coral del Rio & Olga Canto, 2010. "Gender Wage Discrimination and Poverty in the EU," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(2), pages 73-109.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:femeco:v:16:y:2010:i:2:p:73-109
    DOI: 10.1080/13545701003731831
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    2. Leombruni Roberto & Mosca Michele, 2013. "The lifetime gender gap in Italy. Does the pension system countervail labour market outcomes?," Department of Economics and Statistics Cognetti de Martiis. Working Papers 201302, University of Turin.
    3. Coral Río & Olga Alonso-Villar, 2010. "Gender Segregation in the Spanish Labor Market: An Alternative Approach," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 98(2), pages 337-362, September.
    4. Irène Berthonnet, 2023. "Where Exactly Does the Sexist Bias in the Official Measurement of Monetary Poverty in Europe Come From?," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 55(1), pages 132-146, March.
    5. Coral Río & Carlos Gradín & Olga Cantó, 2011. "The measurement of gender wage discrimination: the distributional approach revisited," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 9(1), pages 57-86, March.
    6. María Arrazola & José de Hevia, 2016. "The Gender Wage Gap in Offered, Observed, and Reservation Wages for Spain," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(4), pages 101-128, October.
    7. Mohamed El Hedi Arouri & Nguyen Viet Cuong, 2016. "Does Microcredit Reduce Gender Gap in Employment? An Application of Decomposition Analysis to Egypt," Working Papers 1017, Economic Research Forum, revised Jun 2016.
    8. Awaworyi Churchill, Sefa & Smyth, Russell, 2017. "Ethnic Diversity and Poverty," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 285-302.
    9. Pablo Ponce & Nathalie Aguirre-Padilla & Cristiana Oliveira & José Álvarez-García & María de la Cruz del Río-Rama, 2020. "The Spatial Externalities of Tourism Activities in Poverty Reduction," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(15), pages 1-17, July.
    10. Giorgia Giovannetti & Margherita Velucchi, 2022. "Gender discrimination and firm survival: a multilevel approach for EU textile companies," SN Business & Economics, Springer, vol. 2(9), pages 1-19, September.

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