The utopia of the XXI century: Closing the gender wage gap. A human capital approach.

The gender wage gap (GWG) is what undermines the utopia of the XXI century: a society that ensures gender equality of opportunities. Given the negative economic consequences experienced after the pandemic Covid-19, now more than ever the policymaker needs to unravel the puzzle behind the existence of GWG and implement effective gender-sensitive recovery policies to finally address this form of inequality. This thesis presents three independent empirical studies that aim to uncover the major drivers of the GWG relying on a human capital approach while exploiting differences in human capital investment (vocational versus general education). After demonstrating the existence of a differential life-cycle effect of education types on age-wage profiles, Chapter 2 uncovers a straightforward relationship between gender differences in the age-wage profile, educational background and a country’s educational system. Chapter 3 explores the event of parenthood as another important trigger of GWG and unpacks gender heterogeneities in terms of parenthood wage effects. It then takes a step further and explores any relation between the motherhood wage gap and educational background. Results provide strong evidence that vocational-background women face a higher motherhood wage gap since vocational skills are less transferable, less adaptable and depreciate quicker if compared to skills acquired via a general path. Finally, Chapter 4 focuses on gender occupational segregation and the impact of the glass ceiling effect on women’s relative wage distribution. The chapter investigates how the GWG varies over the wage distribution across education (vocational versus general) and occupation types, defined according to variation in the degree of female participation in each occupation type. Findings show that gender segregation affects the GWG over the wage distribution with women with vocational qualifications facing a tougher glass ceiling in male-dominated and mixed occupations and women with a general background having their weakest glass ceiling effect in male-dominated occupations.