Earnings disparities in the Czech Republic: Evidence of the past decade and cross-national comparison

Wage and income surveys are used to display changes in inequality of earnings and main factors of disparities. In the first part, increasing disparities in the Czech Republic and the decreasing weight of demographic characteristics in wage determination are observed. In the second part, available evidence on cross-national comparison is gathered in order to demonstrate the increasing similarity of the Czech wage structure with Western countries. We document that the introduction of the market economy has led to a significant increase in earnings disparities.