From the 1970s to the beginning of the 1990s, a number of developed countries, particularly the United States and the UK, have witnessed a widening disparity in the skilled and unskilled wage differential accompanied by the unemployment rates.

... From the 1970s to the beginning of the 1990s, a number of developed countries, particularly the United States and the UK, have witnessed a widening disparity in the skilled and unskilled wage differential accompanied by the unemployment rates. Such observations have led to a large number of studies, which try to explain why such disparities occur. Many factors have been proposed for explaining this disparity, ranging from skill-biased demand shifts to skill-biased technical progress. In this paper, detailed factors that cause such disparity would be mentioned and analysed. Wage inequality grew dramatically from 1970 to 1990 in the UK, with the top 10% of workers gaining a 74% increase in real terms, while the bottom 10% gaining only 22%, even a 6% decrease, from 23% to 17%, in the share of UK national income after taxes and benefits. It is argued that the trend to inequality has stabilized or even eased

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