these effects can be broken down into four components women s employment rates women s work intensity the share of females in skilled jobs and the overall returns to female employment wage effect the figure shows that if the proportion of households with a working female had remained the same as in the mid s household income inequality would have increased on average across the oecd countries by an additional point ie an increase in the gini from to instead of the equalising impact of rising female employment was larger in countries such as belgium the netherlands spain and the united kingdom where the share of workingage households with female workers increased greatly this contributed to lowering inequality by or more gini points in these countries