Wages in and out of the public sector: New insights for six selected European countries

This paper aims to draw a comparative picture of some basic features of the public sector labour market in six European economies (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom). Relying upon the Eurostat Structure of Earnings Survey (EU-SES), the Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition was applied to various subsets of the workforce. Issues of comparability are emphasised, by posing civil servants against their appropriate counterparts, i.e. employees from large private firms, by considering jobs and professional figures within the same sectors (Education, Human health, and Local utilities), and by considering workers characterised by similar levels of education. We consider not only hourly earnings but also monthly earnings. We find a wage premium in the public sector in the UK and Spain and to some extent in Italy (only for hourly earnings). Less educated employees working in the public sector fare generally better in terms of the premium compared to their more educated colleagues