Private-sector wage trajectories differ right from the first stable job. Wages are influenced by extremely different career starts. They may reflect certain career-specific characteristics about which we have no information. Conversely, they may be random and due to the date of integration into the labour market, because the jobs offered may be very different. Whatever the reasons for these initial differences, some of them persist, such as the fact of starting out in a part-time job and the skills required for the first position held. A description of private-sector wage trajectories can be used to differentiate the effects of employment situation changes («employment-associated effects») from wage changes (growth in pure wage differentials between occupations and between men and women in a given type of employment) on the wage trajectory. These changes have been analysed by studying cohorts of 1976-1992 labour market entrants from two points of view: inter-generational (growth in numbers between cohorts) and intra-generational (growth in deviations over the career). Some new findings emerge from this analysis. For example, wage deviations between men and women over a career are wider for recent generations than for older generations. The reason for this is twofold. Firstly, the pure monthly wage deviations between men and women with given employment characteristics narrow from one generation to the next. Secondly, income disparities between men and women widen between generations due to employment conditions that are decreasingly lucrative for the women compared with the men.