I have a heap of newspaper cuttings. You might be able to trace them back to their internet versions:
Guardian (www.newsunlimited.co.uk) 'Pay gap between sexes narrows' 'Minimum wage gives women's earnings biggest boost for a decade as average earnings top 20 000 [sterling]' Charlotte Denny and Lucy Ward, 15 October 1999 [cites the Office for National Statistics, presumably from a press release, which might be found at their website www.ons.gov.uk]
by contrast the Times 11 May 2000 [www.the-times.co.uk] reports 'Women wait 100 years to find that work doesn't pay'. This report based on the ONS report Social Inequalities 2000. 'Although the 20th century has seen women enter the professions at an impressive rate, their average earnings are still 40 per cent lower than men's'
Girls' performance in school examinations at General Certificate of Secondary Education (16) and Advanced level GCSE (18) has outstripped boys for a few years now. (Girls leave the boys trailing in GCSE results, Times Friday October 15, 1999). And women outstrip men in universities (women winning by degrees, Guardian, 15 August 2000). So the problem is hardly one of expectations.
An interesting review article of the trends in employment is Irene Breugel's in the (most?) recent issue of the journal Capital and Class, and a good, if boosterish author is Helen Wilkinson (Tomorrow's Women, No Turning Back, both for Demos).
-- James Heartfield