The UK Gender Pay Gap 1997-2015: What Is the Role of the Public Sector?

The Labour Force Survey is used to examine the influence of sector on the UK gender pay gap 1997–2015. The assessment is twofold: first comparing gender pay gaps within sectors and second through identifying the contribution of the concentration of women in the public sector to the overall gender pay gap. The long-term narrowing of the gender pay gap, which predominately reflects relative improvements in women’s productivity-related characteristics, is found to stall in 2010 within each sector. This is considered in the context of claims that public sector austerity represents a critical turning point in progress toward gender equality at work.