In Italy, low-skilled women are 44% less likely to be employed than the well-educated ones, in the United Kingdom and the United States there is a 30% gap, and in Finland and Norway a gap of around 20%. Only in France is the employment gap less than 10%. Raising female employment levels and increasing their earnings has reduced inequality across households (Cancian and Reed, 1999, Reed and Cancian, 2001, Pasqua, 2008, Del Boca and Pasqua, 2003), Birkelund and Mastekaasa, 2010), although there is some evidence that recent increases in female employment may have a smaller effect on reducing household inequality today than they have had in the past (Harkness et al.,