In the UK the gender pay gap on entry to the labour market is approximately zero but after ten years after labour market entry, there is a gender wage gap of almost 25 log points. This paper explores the reason for this gender gap in early-career wage growth, considering three main hypotheses - human capital, job-shopping and `psychological? theories. Human capital factors can explain about 12 log points, job-shopping about 1.5 log points and the psychological theories about half a log point. But a substantial unexplained gap remains: women who have continuous full-time employment, have had no children and express no desire to have them earn about 12 log points less than equivalent men after 10 years in the labour market.

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July 2005     Paper Number CEPDP0700

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This CEP discussion paper is published under the centre's Labour programme.