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This paper analyses gender wage differentials in full‐time employment using recently released data from the National Child Development Study and the British Cohort Study 1970. The paper compares the situations of individuals in their early thirties in 1991 and 2000 and the position of full‐time employees in NCDS as the cohorts aged between 33 and 42. The distribution of individuals' experiences of unequal pay is emphasised by comparing distributions of gender differentials of an “index of unequal treatment”. Passing from age 33 to 42, unequal treatment increased substantially, across the whole distribution.

For nearly 20 years, equal treatment of men and women in the labour market has been enshrined in British law. This was due to the twin acts supporting this: the Equal Pay Act and the Sex Discrimination Act. There were amendments in 1983 to allow equal pay to be claimed in comparable, rather than identical, jobs. By the 1990s, therefore, pay discrimination against women ought to have become a thing of the past. Investigates whether this is so, taking evidence on men and women in their early 30s at two points during this period.

Volume 15 Number 4 of Industrial & Social Relations includes an article by Catherine O'Regan and Clive Thompson entitled “Collective Bargaining and the promotion of equality for women in South Africa”.

Introduces a collection of papers originally presented at the 79th Applied Econometrics Association Conference which was organised with the specific aim of stimulating discussion on the “econometrics of wages”. Topics of particular focus include gender wage gaps and wage discrimination. The papers provide insight into the magnitude and sources of gender, racial and sexual orientation earnings inequalities.

The purpose of the paper is to advocates the use of gendered economic policies to stimulate a post-COVID-19 recovery. It alerts on the risk of ignoring the female dimension of the current crisis and of resorting again to austerity programs that, like the ones enacted after the 2008 crisis, would hit women and mothers disproportionally harder than other groups.

The authors use data from the British Household Panel Survey on female participation and account for gendered constraints and enablers missed by mainstream economics. Using a sequential empirical approach, the authors simulate various welfare policy scenarios that address factors, such as childcare costs, personal and social nudges, that could help women back into the labor market in the aftermath of a crisis.

The authors found that incentive-type interventions, such as subsidies, promote female labor market participation more effectively than punishment-austerity type interventions, such as benefits' cuts. Policies oriented to alleviate childcare constraints can be sustainable and effective in encouraging women back to work. Considering factors wider than the standard economic variables when designing labor market policies may provide fruitful returns.

The sequential methodology enables to estimate current and counterfactual incomes for each female in the sample and to calculate their prospective financial gains and losses in changing their labor market status quo, from not employed into employed or vice-versa. Welfare policies affect these prospective gains and losses and, by interacting with other factors, such as education, number and age of children and social capital, prompt changes in women's labor market choices and decision.

Using data from the Social Change and Economic Life Initiative, an attempt is made to gauge the extent of gender differences in wages that are due to discrimination. Allowance is made for gender differences in occupational attainment. It is estimated that discrimination in the range of 11 to 24 per cent of female wages can be found.

Age is one of the critical factors used by many organizations to determine employees' performance. It is being considered in the retirement process of construction professionals. However, age as a critical factor is not considered in the recruitment of a specific set of workers in the construction industry. Therefore, this study investigated the significant relationship between the ages of tradespeople and their performance in construction projects. The study also explored the age at which performance begins to decline and proposes strategies that can be used to sustain their effectiveness before the official retirement age.

Mixed methods research designs were adopted in the study. To be precise, physical observations, interviews and questionnaires were the instruments used for data collection in the mixed methods research design.

The outcomes of the study revealed that the age groups of tradespeople in the Nigerian construction industry are 16–30 (group one), 31–45 (group two) and 46–58 (group three) respectively. Group three is the prevalent age group. It was also discovered that performance begins to decline at 53 years. The age-performance decline of tradespeople in Nigerian construction projects can be delayed through certain strategies such as regular strength training exercises and an adequate nutritional lifestyle.

The study enables construction managers to have an adequate understanding of the negative influence of old age on the performance of tradespeople in construction projects. This will enable construction firm managers to recruit from the age range of 16–52 and stop retiring employees within this age bracket, consequently curbing the skills gap which is prevalent in the study context and the global construction industry. The study is limited to tradespeople performance in construction firms in Abuja, Nigeria where there are several ongoing projects on a daily basis.

The study enables project managers to estimate the number of tradespeople required for a particular task and consequently save the aged tradespeople from health risks associated with excessive workloads.

This paper is the first of its kind to be conducted in the study context, to establish the specific age at which performance begins to decline among construction tradespeople.