European Sociological Review Advance Access published online on April 2, 2009
European Sociological Review, doi:10.1093/esr/jcp007
The Legacy of Equality and the Weakness of Law: Within-job Gender Wage Inequality in the Czech Republic
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Correspondence: Alena Kíková (to whom correspondence should be addressed), Gender & Sociology Department, Institute of Sociology, AS CR, Jilská 1, 11000 Prague 1, Czech Republic. Email: alena.krizkova{at}soc.cas.cz
Correspondence: Andrew M. Penner, Department of Sociology, University of California, Irvine, 4201 Social Science Plaza B, Irvine, CA 92697, USA. Email: penner{at}uci.edu
Correspondence: Trond Petersen, Department of Sociology, University of California, Berkeley, 410 Barrows Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720-1980, USA. Email: trond{at}berkeley.edu
Using firm-level data from the Czech Republic in the years 1998, 2002, and 2004, we examine whether the introduction of legislative measures for gender equality connected with the accession to the European Union had a significant effect on gender wage inequality. The central conclusion of our analysis is that within-job wage inequality plays a significant role in the Czech labour market, and that there were no substantive changes during the period studied. Czech women doing the same job in the same establishment earn about 10 per cent less than their male co-workers. The smallest gender wage gaps are found in establishments and groups of employees’ representative of or with strong ties to the socialist past. We conclude by speculating that motherhood and women's responsibilities in the home, together with the legal system's lack of legitimacy, limit the impact of legislative changes on practices in Czech society and preserve gender wage discrimination.
Manuscript received: February 1, 2008.