Gender, life cycle trajectories, and their determinants in the Portuguese labour market

Abstract

Gender inequalities relative to labour market opportunities deserve thorough attention from Portuguese researchers in the fields of labour and human resources economics. Indeed, there is clear empirical evidence that women face severe restrictions in reconciling family care and paid work, even when earning a wage is absolutely essential. Even when they manage to combine both tasks, they are much less likely than their male counterparts to achieve the same levels of pay, prestige and responsibility. Furthermore, when we observe women and men at the same level, we notice that to reach this level women, as a rule, have had to invest much more than men in human capital (schooling, occupational experience, vocational training), and, in most cases, tend to earn less. Life cycle patterns are, indeed, quite gender-specific and therefore we need to analyse women’s and men’s longitudinal data in order to shed some light on the main differences. Given that the Portuguese statistical system does not yet provide life cycle data, we only have access to this kind of information in the framework of certain research projects, as presented in this paper.