<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>Over recent years pay levels in the public sector of the economy have come under increasing scrutiny. This paper provides an assessment of the key issues and challenges central to a comparison of wage levels in the private and public sector in Ireland. A review of the extant studies that have employed multivariate analysis to estimate the gap between public and private sector wages in Ireland indicates a wage premium in favour of public sector workers. However the actual magnitude of the earnings gap is difficult to accurately assess as the size of the premium varies markedly across these various studies. A number of possible options are suggested to guide the development of a fair system for assessing wage levels in the public sector.</p></abstract>

Over recent years pay levels in the public sector of the economy have come under increasing scrutiny. This paper provides an assessment of the key issues and challenges central to a comparison of wage levels in the private and public sector in Ireland. A review of the extant studies that have employed multivariate analysis to estimate the gap between public and private sector wages in Ireland indicates a wage premium in favour of public sector workers. However the actual magnitude of the earnings gap is difficult to accurately assess as the size of the premium varies markedly across these various studies. A number of possible options are suggested to guide the development of a fair system for assessing wage levels in the public sector.

Assessing the wage gap between public and private sector employees in Ireland: issues, evidence and challenges

The Irish Journal of Management

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Over recent years pay levels in the public sector of the economy have come under increasing scrutiny. This paper provides an assessment of the key issues and...

Assessing the wage gap between public and private sector employees in Ireland: issues, evidence and challenges

Article Category: Research Article

Published Online: Jan 31, 2019

Page range: 51 - 64

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/ijm-2018-0005

Keywords
public sector pay, issues, evidence

© 2018 Darragh Flannery, Tom Turner, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Assessing the wage gap between public and private sector employees in Ireland: issues, evidence and challenges

Article Category: Research Article

Published Online: Jan 31, 2019

Page range: 51 - 64

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/ijm-2018-0005

Keywordspublic sector pay, issues, evidence

© 2018 Darragh Flannery, Tom Turner, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Keywords
public sector pay, issues, evidence