Austerity and gender inequalities in Europe in times of crisis

The post-2008 recession and the countercyclical responses by European governments that followed triggered an extensive wave of fiscal adjustments. Although underpinned by widespread consensus, the implementation of such measures has also been severely criticised. While their effect on output and employment has been extensively investigated, their impact on wage inequality has received less attention. In this paper, we focus on the consequences of fiscal consolidation measures for gender inequality. After describing the literature-based conceptual framework of our analysis, we provide empirical evidence of the effect of fiscal consolidation on: (i) the adjusted gender wage gap, and (ii) the patterns of gender horizontal segregation. The analysis covers EU-28 countries in the years 2010–13. Results show that austerity measures (both tax-based and expenditure-based) impacted significantly on various aspects of gender wage inequality, putting at risk the relatively little progress achieved in Europe so far.