Is there less gender inequality in the service sector? The gender wage-gap in knowledge-intensive services

Abstract

The expansion of services and the dissemination of information and communication technologies (ICTs) are identified as important factors for improving employment opportunities for women, reducing labour differences by gender. The objective of the study is to determine to what extent services, and especially those most closely linked with knowledge and ICTs such as knowledge-intensive services (KIS), are changing some of the basics of labour gender differences. To do this, first we measure and characterize employment related to the service sector and KIS, comparing the existing gender wage-gap in these activities with the one observed in the overall economy. Then we carry out an analysis of decomposition over these gaps (in term of total distribution of wages and by quantiles). Our results indicate that, although KIS improve the wage situation of women, they are unable substantially to reduce gender wage inequality in the Spanish labour market, perhaps because the same gendered structures of the workplace are replicated in the KIS activities.