The difference between average hourly earnings of men and women, known as the Gender Pay Gap, is a persistent feature across wage distributions across the world. Wales is no exception, with recent data from the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) showing substantial regional variation. In some Welsh local authorities, women are even paid more than men!

My research seeks to understand why the Gender Pay Gap varies across areas within Wales, through utilising Oaxaca’s (1973) decomposition method – often referred to as Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition – to decompose the difference between male and female wages into explained and unexplained variation between the genders.

This PhD is collaborative, working with Chwarae Teg (Wales’ leading Women’s charity) and will build upon their work on the Welsh Government’s Gender Equality Review by producing policy-relevant recommendations. As my PhD is mainly quantitative, I will seek to build upon methodologies that suitably seek to incorporate intersectionality as conceptualised within feminist literature. It may mean I will need to triangulate my work with qualitative data with lived experiences.