The article examines the evolution of the wage structure for men in Spain between 2002 and 2010 on the basis of microdata from the Encuesta de Estructura Salarial and a decomposition econometric methodology developed by Fortin, Lemieux and Firpo (2011). It is observed that real wages grew moderately over the entire period, regardless of the economic cycle, and wage inequality presented a counter-cyclical evolution, increasing significantly after the onset of the economic crisis. Significant changes in the determinants of the evolution of the wage structure are also observed over the period: while changes in wage returns were the most prominent determinants of the evolution of the wage structure during the boom, significant effects are observed during the crisis resulting from changes both in the composition of employment and in wage returns.

Key words: wage inequality, decomposition, quantiles, cycle.
JEL Classification: J3, C8, E3.