Changes in Wage Trends and Earnings Differences in Kerala

In this article, the weekly earnings gap between men and women in Kerala is examined by a number of inequality indices such as the percentile ratio and the Gini coefficient. The entropy measures of inequality are used to decompose wage inequality into within-group and between-group inequalities. The earnings inequality between men and women has been increasing, even though their wage grows faster than men’s wage. The indices of inequality suggest the growing wage disparity in the regular and casual labour market. The result reveals that the levels of education and earnings are positively correlated, but women with the same level of education earn much less than men in regular salaried work. The rising wage inequality of men and women during 2004–2009 were associated with the growth rate of wages in the same period. That is, the wage rates of both regular and casual workers have increased more than four per cent during the period that experienced the highest inequality.