Gender Pay Gap

The gender pay gap is a complex historical phenomenon. It is linked to unequal evaluations of work in the labor markets, to gender images that change only slowly over time, and to an unequal distribution of household, care, and paid work. The authors exemplarily trace the conditions of unequal pay from different perspectives. In the Federal Republic of Germany, women earned about 18 percent less than men per hour of work in 2021. The gap in remuneration has long been discussed politically and scientifically. Nevertheless, inequality is only decreasing slowly. The existence and persistence of the phenomenon, however, are cross-national. This volume examines the historical and current manifestations and causes of the gender pay gap from the perspectives of history, sociology, law, and economics.