THE PERSISTENCE OF GENDER INEQUALITY IN EARNINGS IN THE GERMAN-DEMOCRATIC-REPUBLIC

When the German Democratic Republic ceased to exist in 1990, women the re had achieved virtual equality with men in terms of occupational qua lifications and labor force experience. New life history data for four birth cohorts of East German women and men show that, despite this, t he gender gap in earnings remained substantial. Throughout the 40-year history of the GDR, women continued to experience a considerable pay disadvantage when entering the work force, and the gap persisted at th e end of 1989. The persistence of women's pay disadvantage in a societ y where gender differences in qualifications and labor force experienc e had almost disappeared suggests that education and labor force exper ience were not causes of the gender gap in pay. The inability to expla in much of women's lower prey by the sex segregation of broad occupati onal or industrial categories suggests that the main source of women's pay disadvantage was low pay in the specific jobs occupied by women. This raises the question of why the Socialist Party did not exercise i ts authority in the centralized economy to adjust pay scales to remove gender-based pay differentials.