Does flexible employment pay? European evidence on the wage perspectives of female workers

The aim of this paper is to explore three issues relating to the financial dimension of female labour market outcomes. Firstly we analyze the gender pay differentials, adding to the existing literature an age – and distribution specific gender pay gaps. Next, we investigate the wage returns associated with two flexible types of employment, namely temporary and part time jobs. Our results show that flexible employment forms offer no consistent pattern of age-specific wage returns. Eastern and Western European countries differ in some aspects: young women in the former experience much larger pay gaps at the beginning of their working careers (compared to men), and their wage penalties associated with fixed term contracts tend to increase with age. Part time work appears to be beneficial mainly for the high paid women.