Structural Change, Innovation and Gender Gaps

While there is a large literature that links structural changes and innovation, their impact on gender gaps is fairly overlooked. This paper aims to fill this gap by providing a selected, and therefore necessarily non-exhaustive, review of the literature and fresh descriptive evidence on the role of structural change and innovations on the gender pay gaps and the gender employment segregation. We look at how firms that innovate tend to share innovation rents and premia heterogeneously, at disadvantage for women, and mention other sources of gender pay gaps. Structural change leads to sectoral compositions mix, which are shown to affect differently the ways women enter and remain employed. Female employment includes a higher share of unpaid work and alternative work arrangements than male employment and is due more to gender stereotypes than women’s capabilities, skills or education. We conclude by offering reflections on how gender gaps, both in terms of employment prospects and equality of earnings, can be tackled within Pasinetti’s framework.

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