The Wages Structure and Some Implications for Incomes Policy

Abstract

During the last decade the relative earnings of different groups of manual workers have not changed to any marked extent. Such changes as have occurred have for the most part been unsystematic, except that there has been a tendency for unskilled rates to rise rather more than skilled rates. In highly-paid industries there has been no tendency for earnings to increase more or less than the average; women's earnings have not changed very markedly compared with men's; nor, as other studies have shown, is there any clear relationship between the relative rise in earnings and changes in the size of the labour force in different industries, or different rates of increase of productivity.