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The purpose of this article is to illustrate differences in the gender wage gap in 13 EU member states, using figures taken from the Household Panel for 2000. The methodology is based primarily on the kernel density functions of men's and women's wages. A range of situations can be observed from the Mediterranean countries (with a smaller gender pay gap) to the very specific cases of Austria and the UK and to northern European countries where the gender pay gap is chiefly the result of a larger proportion of men at higher-paid levels. We also offer conclusions on the relevance of public employment, part-time employment and short-term hiring to explain the gender wage gap in each of the countries studied.

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This paper sets out to estimate the GPG in EU countries based on a number of variables: the female participation rate, occupational segregation by gender, the proportion of people working in high-wage jobs and in education and health, plus the wage dispersion. The analysis covers 25 EU countries over 12 years from 2004 to 2015. The data are taken from three statistical surveys: the Labour Force Survey, the Structure of Earnings Survey and the EU-SILC. Three fixed-effect models and three random-effect models are estimated, based on an incomplete panel-dataset of 271 observations. The key variables in explaining the GPG in the Southern Europe group are the female participation rate and the proportion of people working in high-wage jobs and in the Northern Europe group they are the female participation rate and the proportion of people working in education and health. By contrast, in the CEE country group the female participation rate is not significant and the most relevant explanatory variables are occupational segregation and the wage dispersion. This paper finds evidence that comparisons between countries to determine GPGs have to take into account institutional and cultural factors, social roles and historical trends in national labour forces. JEL: J21; J24; C23; C54

This article sets out to help provide a more detailed explanation for the narrower gender wage gap in Mediterranean countries. Two explanatory hypotheses are put forward and compared empirically using the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU‐SILC). The most widely accepted hypothesis is that gender wage gaps across countries are negatively correlated with gender employment gaps. The second hypothesis, however, is supported by evidence that the narrower wage gap in Mediterranean countries could be due to the differences in demand for labour in EU countries as a result ultimately of decisions by major corporations concerning the location of the activities in their value chain.