Despite substantial advances in women’s educational attainment and labor force participation, gender inequalities in pay and career advancement remain pervasive. This dissertation employs a couple-level, linked life course perspective to examine how gender inequalities in labor market outcomes develop within different-sex couples and the factors driving these inequalities. In three empirical chapters, I conceptualize gender inequality as a process that is jointly produced and reproduced within couples over the course of relationships and is shaped by the broader policy contexts in which couples are embedded. Using a variety of quantitative methods and nationally-representative, longitudinal data sources, I examine couple-level inequalities on a range of paid work outcomes, analyzing both longer-term gender inequalities that develop over the course of marriage as well as shorter-term inequalities that emerge during particular stages of the life course that may intensify gender inequality within couples, including the transition to parenthood and job loss. My first chapter considers gender equality from a long-term perspective, examining how gender equality in earnings evolves over the course of 30 years of marriage. I find that long-term gender equality in earnings is more common than cross-sectional estimates suggest, but that gender egalitarian earnings patterns differ qualitatively by couples’ socio-economic status at the onset of marriage. Focusing on the transition to parenthood, my second chapter examines how micro- and macro-level factors interact to shape couple-level gender inequalities in the division of household labor. Our findings show that generous work-family policies reduce the importance of couple-level characteristics – such as the balance of spouses’ relative resources - in shaping the division of paid work after first birth. Finally, my third chapter examines how work and family processes shape gender inequalities in re-employment opportunities following job loss, revealing that job loss is a catalyzing event that exacerbates women’s – especially mothers’ – labor market marginalization. Together, these chapters leverage a variety of approaches, data sources and methods to shed new light on the mechanisms through which gender inequalities in the labor market are generated.