The Equal Pay Act as an Experiment to Test Theories of the Labour Market

Dados Bibliográficos

ID9723650
AutoresAlan Manning (0000-0002-7884-3580, autor correspondente)
Ano1996
Volume63
Fascículo250
Páginas191
Data de publicação1996-05-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoEconomica (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0013-0427 • E-ISSN: 1468-0335
EditoraJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/2554759
OpenAlexW1987993201
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas14
Referências citadas4

The UK Equal Pay Act of 1970 resulted in a large rise in the relative earnings of women in the early 1970s. As this change (unlike most wage changes) was largely exogenous to employers, one can think of this episode as an experiment for testing different theories of the labour market. Hence, study of the effects of the Equal Pay Act should be given considerable weight and is likely to have wider implications about the operation of labour markets. Most models of the labour market used by economists assume that employment is demand-determined at least after a large positive shock to the wage. These models would predict that female relative employment should have fallen after the introduction of the Equal Pay Act. Yet, it is hard to find evidence of this. This paper argues that female relative employment did not fall because the female labour market is, in part, monopsonistic

Earnings · Economics · Labour economics · Monopsony · Shock (circulatory) · Test (biology) · Wage · Gender, Labor, and Family Dynamics · Housing Market and Economics · Labor market dynamics and wage inequality