The economic role of women has changed in Britain, as a result of cultural change and equal opportunities legislation. In Discussion Paper Nos. 156 and 157, Programme Director Heather Joshi and Marie-Louise Newell report the results of new research on how family responsibilities and labour market discrimination affect women's employment and earnings. Their work is based on data from the National Survey of Health and Development on the 1972 and 1977 hourly pay of men and women from the 1946 birth cohort. Their analysis suggests that about one half of the 58% gap between men's and women's hourly wage rates was attributable to direct sex discrimination in the labour market: the remainder derived from men's superior education and employment experience. Motherhood had much less impact on women's hourly earnings and operated only indirectly, through the effects of interrupted employment experience and part-time working. Joshi and Newell conduct simulations which put the lifetime earnings of a typical working man at #428,000, a childless woman at #293,000, and a woman with two children at #158,000. In terms of lifetime earnings, womanhood and motherhood exact similar penalties.

These findings are discussed more fully in this Bulletin's report of a lunchtime talk given by Heather Joshi.