Determinants of the gender unemployment gap in Italy and the United Kingdom: A comparative investigation

Date01 December 2015
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1111/j.1564-913X.2015.00028.x
Published date01 December 2015
International Labour Review, Vol. 154 (2015), No. 4
Copyright © The authors 2015
Journal compilation © International Labour Organization 2015
* Department of Economic and Social Sciences, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore,
Piacenza, Italy, emails: maurizio.baussola@unicatt.it; chiara.mussida@unicatt.it. ** Ofce for
National Statistics, London, emails: jamie.jenkins@ons.gsi.gov.uk; matthew.penfold@ons.gsi.gov.uk.
Responsibility for opinions expressed in signed articles rests solely with their authors, and
publication does not constitute an endorsement by the ILO.
Determinants of the gender
unemployment gap
in Italy and the United Kingdom:
A comparative investigation
Maurizio BAUSSOLA,* Chiara MUSSIDA,* Jamie JENKINS**
and Matthew PENFOLD**
Abstract. The authors analyse the gender unemployment gap in Italy and the
United Kingdom by investigating the determinants of labour market ows, on the
basis of multinomial logit model estimates, and identifying the contribution of a
single transition from each state – employment, unemployment, inactivity – to the
gap. Using this methodology, labour markets in Italy and the United Kingdom
are compared, based on both countries’ labour force survey data for the period
200 4–13. Decomposition of the gender unemployment gap, using a transition prob-
ability matrix approach, shows that while women are disadvantaged in Italy, the
reverse is true in the United Kingdom.
The sharp rise in unemployment rates during the economic downturn that
followed the 2008 recession calls for researchers and policy-makers to
address various questions such as the role played by structural factors versus
cyclical factors in bringing about an upturn. In this context, an issue that was
largely neglected in the 1990s is of renewed relevance: the gender unemploy-
ment gap.
It is only recently that this gap – the difference in male and female un-
employment rates – has again started to receive the attention it deserves. It
was last considered a relevant economic and policy issue in the 1970s and early
1980s; the seminal papers by Marston (1976) and Clark and Summers (1979)
are clear illustrations of that debate, which also included the role of ethnic fac-
tors as determinants of structural differences in the United States’ unemploy-
ment rate. Subsequently, the literature focused more on other aspects of gender
differentials, such as labour force participation and the gender wage gap.
International Labour Review538
Since the rst decade of the new millennium, however, the gender un-
employment gap has been put back on the agenda. Recent literature includes
international comparisons; a study by Azmat, Guell and Manning (20 06), for
example, looks at gender unemployment gaps in Organisation for Economic
Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, using microdata collected
from the European Community Household Panel (ECHP) survey and the Cur-
rent Population Survey (CPS). The authors nd that in countries where the
gap is relatively large, it is women who are disadvantaged. This is particularly
true for Mediterranean countries, which typically also have very high youth
unemployment rates. In addition, the authors nd that in countries with higher
female labour force participation rates and subsequent higher levels of fe-
male labour market attachment – for example, Anglo-Saxon countries – the
gender unemployment gap is smaller. However, they also show that in many
European countries, particularly in southern Europe, the gap has increased in
recent decades, despite higher female participation rates, thus suggesting that
institutional factors can play a crucial role in perpetuating this gap.
More recent studies have shown the gender unemployment gap nar-
rowing as a result of the economic recession. S¸ahin, Song and Hobijn (2010),
for example, show how the gap narrowed in the United States as a result of
higher male unemployment following the effect of the downturn on industries
such as construction and nance, where men were more heavily represented
than women.
Against this background, we analyse the gender unemployment gap, com-
paring patterns in Italy and the United Kingdom. The two countries have
different institutional frameworks, with different labour institutions and regu-
lations. Italy has a typically southern European labour market, composed of
segments characterized by signicantly different levels of employment pro-
tection, and therefore different labour costs, while the United Kingdom has a
typically Anglo-Saxon labour market characterized by less employment pro-
tection legislation (Theodossiou and Zangelidis, 20 09). Despite these intrinsic
differences, both labour markets have high labour mobility overall, but this mo-
bility affects the labour force in each country in different ways. In particular,
a signicant gender unemployment gap persists in the Italian labour market,
reecting the disadvantage suffered by female labour force participants. While
this imbalance has improved since the 1980s, female disadvantage remains a
structural characteristic of the Italian labour market.
We extend the analysis by Baussola (1985 and 1988) and Baussola and
Mussida (2011 and 2014) to provide more detailed and updated evidence of
the determinants of labour market ows – or labour market transitions – and
how they affect the gender unemployment gap. We provide econometric esti-
mates of the ows, which enable us to highlight their determinants and how
they affect the gender unemployment gap. In addition, we decompose the
gender unemployment gap, and measure the marginal contribution of each
labour market transition – i.e. each transition from the state of employment, un-
employment or inactivity – to this gap.

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