Long-term trends in the gender income gap within couples. West-Germany, 1978-2011

Abstract

Over the past 50 years, women in Western societies have increased their level of education and their participation in the labour market. Nevertheless, they continue to contribute significantly less to a couple’s income than their male partners. Here, we ask how the gender income gap within couples has changed over the past decades and in which groups it has decreased or increased. We synthesize streams of argumentation regarding the sources of changes in the gap into one broad perspective on the changing opportunities available to coupled women to convert their income potential into actual income contributions, and how this relates to the income trends of their male counterparts. Using German Microcensus data, we show that West German women contributed 16.5% to couples’ income in 1978 and had increased their contribution to 30.1% by 2011. Our decompositions reveal that women contributed to this mostly by changes in composition, namely due to being more highly educated and working longer hours. Women contributed very little due to increased income returns. Income trends of non-working women are a notable exception. In contrast, men contributed to the trend with changes in income returns. Their higher education and full-time premiums have been a strong counter to the overall trend.