The Public Pay Gap in Britain: Small Differences that (Don't?) Matter

Abstract

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Does it pay to be a public-sector employee?

“…Whatever their origin, they will matter to forward-looking individuals. As such, a summary assessment of the relative attractiveness of public-sector jobs must rely on a criterion that aggregates all these differences into a single measure relevant to individual sector choice [2], [4]. This contribution refers to such a measure as the lifetime value of a career.…”

“…Note that "wages" here refers to monthly earnings among men. A number of studies describe publicprivate differences in men's usual working times and show that those are generally small, with working hours being slightly longer and part-time work slightly less common in the private sector [1], [2]. The typical wage difference is around 10%, ranging from a relatively modest 4% in Germany to a very significant 26% in Spain.…”

Salaires et emploi dans les secteurs public et privé. Différences et interactions

“…Nos travaux sur le Royaume Uni (Postel-Vinay et Turon, 2007) et sur cinq autres pays Européens (Dickson et al 2014) apportent une dimension dynamique à la mesure des différences salariales entre privé et public. Comme nous allons le montrer, les différences statiques entre les niveaux de salaires instantanés sont certes présentes dans les données, mais elles ne révèlent qu'une image incomplète de la valeur d'un emploi dans chaque secteur dès lors que des différences importantes en termes de volatilité et de croissance des salaires ainsi qu'en termes de sécurité de l'emploi existent.…”

“…A une époque où les économies budgétaires sont régulièrement en première ligne du débat politique, il nous paraît important de bien comprendre si les conditions de rémunération et d'emploi offertes dans le secteur public sont avantageuses par rapport à celles du secteur privé, ainsi que d'évaluer l'intensité de la compétition entre les deux secteurs pour l'offre de travail, pour être en mesure de prédire l'impact potentiel de différents choix politiques en termes d'emploi et de salaires dans le secteur public. Nos travaux (Postel-Vinay et Turon, 2007, Dickson, Postel-Vinay et Turon, 2014, et Bradley, Postel-Vinay et Turon, 2015 apportent des éléments de réponse à ces questions.…”

Wages in and out of the public sector: new insights for six selected European countries

“…Finally there is a third group, composed of few studies, that tries to investigate the peculiar characteristics of public employees, including civil servants' motivations, such as altruism and mission oriented (see for example Francois, 2000;Besley andGhatak, 2005, Buurman et al, 2012), the different degree of aversion to risk of public and private employees (Bellante and Link, 1981;Bonin et al, 2007;Pfeifer, 2011), the great attractiveness for public employees of high job security (Cappellari, 2002) and low wage mobility (Budria, 2010;Postel-Vinay and Turon, 2007). For example, Bellante and Link (1981) suggest that if the sorting process in the public and private sector depends on the degree of risk aversion, then those individuals with a high degree of aversion to risk will be more likely than others to seek employment in the public sector.…”