The Gender Pay Gap

Introduction

A woman holds a sign calling for equal pay during a Los Angeles rally for International Women's Day on March 8. On average, women make 82 cents for every dollar men make, a gap that persists across different careers. (Getty Images/SOPA Images/LightRocket/Ronen Tivony)

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Overview

Lauren Hasson was 31 and working as a software engineer at a Dallas company when a newly hired male colleague she was training complained he was not making enough money. She soon discovered he was earning the same salary as her — even though she had worked at the company for two years and had degrees from Duke University in electrical engineering, computer science and economics.

“It was a sucker punch,” Hasson says. “Up until that point, I had suspected I was underpaid. Now I had cold hard data.”

Hasson channeled that anger for a positive purpose. “I decided if they aren't going to offer me more money, I would make my own outcome,” she says. She invested in personal coaching to learn how to negotiate and, within two years, says she was able to change jobs and triple her salary, making six figures more than she was earning at the Dallas firm. She also founded DevelopHer, a career development platform, to teach other women better negotiating skills to help them close the wage gap.

Emergency room nurse Katie Johnson takes Sister Margaret Cushman's temperature at Mercy Hospital in Portland, Maine, in 2017. Even in a female-dominated career such as nursing, male registered nurses make about $4,000 more annually on average than their female counterparts. (Getty Images/Portland Press Herald/Carl D. Walsh)

Hasson's experience was far from unique. According to one frequently cited metric based on U.S. Census Bureau data, women in the United States earn 82 cents for every dollar earned by a man, amounting to an annual average gender wage gap of $10,194.1 The differential was 80 cents on the dollar last year.2

Pay gaps exist across all industries, from entertainment to nursing. Warner Bros. Studios recently offered the co-writers of sequels to the hit movie Crazy Rich Asians vastly different wages — between $800,000 and $1 million for Peter Chiarelli, but $110,000-plus for Adele Lim.3 Even in fields such as nursing, where women hold 91 percent of the jobs, male registered nurses make slightly more: about $84,000 annually on average, compared with $80,000 for female nurses.4 A bigger gap is found in the museum field, with male chief curators earning a median yearly salary of $71,050, compared with $55,550 for their female counterparts, according to a 2017 survey by the American Alliance of Museums.5

Based on current trends, it will take 208 years — the equivalent of three lifetimes — to reach full economic gender parity in the United States, according to a 2018 report by the World Economic Forum, a Swiss-based nongovernmental organization. The Forum issues an annual report that measures the gender gap across four categories: economic participation, educational attainment, health and survival and political empowerment.6

One possible positive development: Recent data from the Pew Research Center indicates the pay gap might be narrowing among younger adults. In 1980, women ages 25 to 34 earned 33 cents less than their male counterparts, but by 2018 the gap for this group had fallen to 11 cents.7

Yet there is robust debate among economists and other experts about the size and sources of the gender pay gap — or even whether it exists.

Some economists argue that women tend to take jobs and follow career paths that pay less than the jobs men typically hold. Diana Furchtgott-Roth, a former senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank, has argued that “nine of the 10 lowest-paying college majors are dominated by women, while men are disproportionately represented in the 10 highest-paying college majors.” She is now deputy assistant secretary for research and technology at the U.S. Department of Transportation.8

Even within the same field, occupational decisions can affect earnings. For instance, the pay differential for male and female nurses derives from factors such as men being more likely to work at inpatient and urban facilities, where pay tends to be higher, according to a 2017 survey by Medscape, a medical information website. Male nurses also tend to work more overtime hours and take more on-call shifts than women.9

Similarly, a study published in the journal JAMA Surgery in October found that female surgeons earned 24 percent less per hour while operating compared with male surgeons because women performed fewer of the highest-paid primary procedures.10

Discrimination is not driving the pay gap, but rather the career choices women make, says Jennifer C. Braceras, director of the Independent Women's Law Center, a conservative organization focused on economic policy issues of concern to women. “The Equal Pay Act [of 1963] has outlawed pay discrimination,” she says. “Our argument isn't that it doesn't happen or it doesn't matter. It's that current law prohibits it, and it doesn't happen as frequently as people believe it does.”

Braceras points to a recent study by PayScale, a company that produces compensation software for employers, that sought to control for factors such as job title, years of experience, industry and location. When the only differentiation between workers is gender, the pay gap nearly disappears, with women making 98 cents for every dollar an equivalent man makes, according to the study.11

“Anyone who thinks they are being paid less should bring that case forward,” Braceras says. “The law is there to protect women.”

But there is a chicken-and-egg riddle wrapped in such arguments, says Nicole Smith, chief economist at Georgetown University's Center on Education and the Workforce. Although women are disproportionately attracted to caregiving careers such as nursing and teaching, Smith says, there is a question of what comes first — women's interest in such careers, or the lower wages.

“It seems whenever we have an occupation that is predominately women-based, it tends to pay less,” she says. “Even in subdivisions of STEM [science, technology, engineering and math] careers, women are paid less.”

For instance, Smith says, structural and industrial engineering, which attracts more women, pays less than chemical and petroleum engineering, which attracts more men. “There is something about our societal structure that has overwhelmingly resulted in men being paid more than women,” she says.

Congressional Action

Congress has made efforts to curb the pay gap, starting with the 1963 Equal Pay Act, which sought to outlaw pay discrimination based on gender. The following year, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 included wage discrimination by sex as one of the practices it outlawed. More than four decades later, in 2009, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act reversed a Supreme Court decision that had hampered workers’ ability to sue employers on racial or gender pay discrimination claims.12

President Barack Obama signs the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act in 2009. The law extends the time in which employees could sue their employers for claims of bias in hiring or compensation based on race or sex. (Getty Images/MTC/Tribune News Service/Chuck Kennedy)

When the Equal Pay Act was signed into law, women were paid 59 cents on average for every dollar earned by men. More than 50 years later, the wage gap has narrowed by less than half a cent per year, according to the National Committee on Pay Equity, an advocacy group for pay equality.13

And these statistics actually understate the pay inequality problem, according to the Institute for Women's Policy Research, a Washington think tank. The institute argued that women earn only 49 cents on the male dollar when taking into account that women are penalized for taking time out of the workforce to care for children or other family members. For instance, women who took just one year off found their annual earnings were 39 percent lower than women who worked all 15 years between 2001 and 2015, the institute found. Although men were also penalized if they took time off, women experienced greater earnings losses.14

“The gender pay gap may look as if it narrowed, but it hasn't,” says Ariane Hegewisch, the institute's program director for employment and earnings. “If you're out of market for two years because of [the birth of] a child, you're likely to come back at a lower level, and you might never catch up with your male peer who didn't leave for caregiving.”

Over a woman's lifetime, that differential in pay adds up. For instance, a woman with a professional degree loses on average more than $1.6 million in earnings over her lifetime because of the gender pay gap, according to the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. Women without a college degree lose $547,900 in lifetime earnings because of the wage gap, according to the center.

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And if women persistently earn less than men, they have less to invest in 401(k) retirement accounts and other long-term assets, and therefore will end their working lives with a wealth gap that is even greater than the pay gap, says Smith, the Georgetown economist. Every woman, regardless of her education, who takes time off to have a child “and do what is a natural and expected function” is unduly penalized for having made that decision when she re-enters the workforce, Smith says.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the 36-member international organization comprised of the world's most prosperous economies, cites three causes of pay inequity: gender segregation in education and jobs, women taking most of the responsibility for caregiving and overt discrimination.15

Historically, women have always faced discrimination, Smith says, and men have always dominated the workplace, holding most or all senior positions. If one adopts the stereotypical view that men are the head of the household and primary breadwinner, then “a woman's salary is just additional spending money” and not required to support the household, she says. But, in many cases, that assessment is no longer accurate, as more women are heading up single-parent households, Smith says.

Sheryl Sandberg is chief operating officer of Facebook and founder of LeanIn.org, which promotes gender equity. (Getty Images/Bloomberg/Patrick T. Fallon)

LeanIn.org, the group founded by Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg to promote gender equity, has identified another potential source of pay disparity. Its latest report on women in the workplace, done with the global consulting firm McKinsey & Co., found that for every 100 men promoted to or hired for managerial positions, only 72 women are so promoted or hired.16 The result of this “broken rung” is an uneven split in manager-level posts — and significantly fewer women to advance to higher levels, says Rachel Thomas, president of LeanIn.org and founder of the annual study.

The difference is even greater for women of color, Thomas says: For every 100 entry-level men who are promoted to manager, just 68 Latinas and 58 black women are promoted.

“We believe that bias in promotion is playing a big role in pay inequity,” Thomas says. Women are not being promoted and, as a result, are paid less than the male peers they were hired with, she says. Companies are very focused on hiring diverse talent, she says, but they are not applying the same rigor to promoting such talent.

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In addition, to the extent that the burden continues to fall more heavily on women to care for sick children and other family members, they are penalized for taking time away from work and may also be encouraged to look for jobs that offer more flexibility. Both can affect pay levels.

“There are plenty of studies that show experience on the job, especially recent experience, … leads to increased wages,” says Robert Miller, professor of economics and strategy at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. What this means is that, other things being equal, someone who has been on the same job for the last few years tends to earn more than someone who has not been in the workforce, Miller says. And jobs that offer flexible working hours tend to pay less: “Flexibility is something we all value and that is why the market tends to financially reward those jobs where there is less flexibility,” he says.

For instance, Miller says, although real estate agents in the United States are predominantly female, real estate brokers are more likely to be male. (A licensed real estate broker typically has taken more training than an agent, has passed a specialized exam and is allowed to supervise agents.17) Agents have much more flexibility in their working hours than do brokers, he adds. That might explain why the median salary for men in real estate is $96,071 but only $59,575 for women.18

“It appears that flexibility is more attractive to females than to males,” Miller says.

Hegewisch of the Institute for Women's Policy Research questions whether women are voluntarily choosing flexibility over equal pay — or if, because of social constraints, women are forced to make that choice because of a lack of adequate child care and schools that end classes in the afternoon and close during the summer.

“If you look dollar for dollar, level of education for level of education, the type of work done by women — typically caregiving — pays less than jobs that meet the same level of education,” Hegewisch says. “Because [caregiving is also] done for free in the home, people don't recognize the skill and see it as something anyone can do.”

In fact, several Democratic presidential candidates are proposing that parents who stay home to care for a child should be paid. Sen. Cory Booker and former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro want to expand eligibility for the Earned Income Tax Credit to include at-home caregivers. Booker, tech entrepreneur Andrew Yang and Sens. Michael Bennet, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have proposed paying stay-at-home parents a monthly stipend. Sanders and Warren also want to create a Social Security credit for anyone who leaves the workforce to care for a family member.19

A teacher at Rosa Parks Elementary School in San Francisco reads to her students. Women dominate jobs such as teaching that offer relatively low pay, leading some observers to conclude that individual choices cause the gender wage gap — but others to ask whether it is the prevalence of women in a field that lowers its pay. (Getty Images/Justin Sullivan)

The link between gender and wages can be seen in the tendency of certain jobs to fall in pay as they transition from primarily male to largely female occupations. For instance, until the late 19th century and the advent of technology such as the typewriter and adding machine, secretarial work and bookkeeping were male-dominated professions.20 As more women were hired for these positions, men left for other fields and salaries declined, Hegewisch says.

Similarly, the average annual income of U.S. veterinarians fell from $130,864 to approximately $112,000 between 2006 and 2016, a period when more women were entering the profession.21

“Because women's mean income has historically been less than their male counterparts’, the increasing portion of women also puts downward pressure on mean incomes for the profession,” wrote Fred Ouedraogo and Michael Dicks in an article for the American Veterinary Medical Association.22

Georgetown's Smith says women who voluntarily enter occupations that are typecast as female and are lower-paying are still “very competent critical thinkers who have spent just as much time and money, and incurred as much debt, to achieve their goals, but will be caught up in a job that will make it harder to pay their bills.”

The wage gap in the United States grows wider when analyzed by race. Hispanic women earned just 54.5 percent and black women 61.8 percent of white men's median annual earnings in 2018, according to the Institute for Women's Policy Research.23

LeanIn.org found a similar pattern: On average, black women are paid 39 percent less than white men and 21 percent less than white women.24 Latina women, it reported, are paid an average of 47 percent less than white men and 31 percent less than white women.25

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There is a link between racial pay differences and disparate opportunity levels, Hegewisch says: “It isn't just that you're doing the same job and getting paid less, it can also be different pathways and opportunities.”

For example, a two-year study by researchers from Harvard University, the University of Toronto and Stanford University found that minority applicants who “whitened” their résumés by deleting references to their race or using a name more associated with a white candidate were more likely to be called for an interview.26

The pay gap also widens as women age. Business Insider used Census data to calculate that the pay gap is widest at ages 57 and 58. The median full-time, year-round male worker at those ages earned $62,000 in 2017, while a full-time, year-round female worker had a total income of $46,000, or about 74.2 percent of what a male worker of the same age earned. At the other end of the age spectrum, the median female worker in her 20s and 30s earned more than 80 percent of what a male worker earned.27

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Current Situation

Paycheck Fairness Act

Congressional Democrats, who took control of the House in last year's midterm elections, are attempting to pass laws aimed at closing the pay gap.

In March, the House passed the Paycheck Fairness Act, which would require companies to disclose how much they are paying employees and demonstrate that any gender salary differences are based on factors such as education or years of experience rather than bias. The bill would also fund additional training for Equal Employment Opportunity Commission staff to better identify and handle wage disputes. However, the Republican-controlled Senate is unlikely to act on the bill because of conservative opposition.28

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., speaks at a news conference held by House Democrats to introduce the Paycheck Fairness Act in January. The measure, which would require companies to show that salary differences are based on education or experience and not gender, has passed the House but is stalled in the Senate. (Getty Images/Alex Wong)

Several Democratic presidential candidates have offered measures to help close the pay gap. Harris is proposing that larger companies be required to certify that men and women are paid equally.29 In addition to a plan for universal child care, Warren says she will sign three executive actions on her first day as president to expand economic opportunities for women of color.30 Sanders and South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg have endorsed the Paycheck Fairness Act.

The Trump administration has taken the opposite tack. The administration attempted to stop the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's effort to collect pay data by race and gender from large companies, calling it an unnecessary burden on the businesses. But a federal judge ruled in March that the administration was violating the law and ordered the commission to move ahead in gathering the data, which advocates of the effort say will help shrink the wage gap.31

At the state level, California last year enacted a measure prohibiting employers from asking job applicants about their salary histories. Proponents argue that the law will help close the wage gap by allowing women to seek higher salaries without having to reveal their current pay, which employers could use to justify a lower salary offer.32 The law took effect Jan. 1.

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Outlook

Sharing the Burden

Miller, the Carnegie Mellon economics professor, says that if men took more responsibility in the home and for child care, this might have a greater effect than legislative action.

Braceras, of the Independent Women's Law Center, agrees that if men shouldered more of the household burdens, the pay gap would continue to narrow and possibly disappear. “Why is it, on average, women make less than men? Because women still take more time off for family reasons,” she says.

In line with this, one possible source of pay inequality was identified in a study of bus and train operators at Boston's public transit agency, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority. The study found that female workers there earn 89 cents for every dollar their male colleagues earn, despite identical hourly salaries and promotion based on tenure.

But the study also found that when overtime hours are offered at the last minute, men are more likely to accept, leading to higher wages. When overtime is scheduled three months in advance, men and women work a similar number of hours, the study found.33

Another way to help close the pay gap is to teach women how to negotiate salary more effectively. It is important to demand what one is worth, Braceras says. “Many of us after taking time off [to have a baby] are hesitant, when we're coming back to work, to ask for anything other than an opportunity and flexibility,” she says.

That's a lesson that Hasson, the software engineer who discovered that a male colleague was hired at a higher salary, says she has learned. “I don't go into salary negotiations hoping for the best outcome,” she says. “I go in knowing what I'm going to say, how I'm going to counter and knowing what I'm worth. I expect pushback.”

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Pro/Con

Do women face pay discrimination in the workplace because of their gender?

Pro Deborah J. Vagins Senior Vice President of Public Policy and Research, American Association of University Women. Written for CQ Researcher, November 2019 More than five decades after the Equal Pay Act of 1963 and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 made pay discrimination illegal, significant pay disparities between men and women remain. While the gender pay gap has narrowed since passage of these critical laws, the overall gap has only decreased a few cents in this century. Census Bureau data show, once again, that women working full time are typically paid only 82 cents for every dollar paid to men. The pay gaps are even wider for women of color: Black women and Latinas make, respectively, 62 and 54 cents on the dollar compared to non-Hispanic white men. Unless action is taken, the gender pay gap will not close until 2093. Differences in pay result from a variety of factors. But unfortunately, workplace discrimination remains a significant part of the problem. For example, we know that the pay gap starts early in women's careers, which rebuts the idea this has to do with women's choices. According to our research, after accounting for college major, occupation, hours worked, age, geographical region and marital status, there is still a 7 percent unexplained difference in the earnings of men and women just one year after graduation. This gap widens over time, affecting women's financial security later in life. The reasons the pay gaps persist is due not only to direct discrimination in wages (such as when women are offered lower starting salaries than their male colleagues doing the same job), but also to other factors that can impact pay, such as workplace harassment, pregnancy discrimination, or a lack of paid leave. “Occupational segregation” — the fact that men and women tend to work in different jobs and men's fields typically pay more — contributes to the problem. These jobs do not pay less because they require fewer skills; they pay less because women do them. Moreover, certain workplace practices that keep pay information secret can exacerbate pay disparities. The pay gap is smaller in sectors where transparency is mandated — such as in the federal government — and larger in sectors where it is not, such as in the private, for-profit sector. Closing the pay gap will require passing new legislation, such as the federal Paycheck Fairness Act, to give workers stronger tools to challenge pay discrimination. Until then, employers can take action now by conducting regular pay audits, adopting policies making pay more transparent and eliminating the use of salary history to set wages.

Con Mark J. Perry Scholar, American Enterprise Institute and Professor of Economics, University of Michigan, Flint. Written for CQ Researcher, November 2019 Labor economists, who have conducted numerous studies to explain differences in earnings, believe there are two main factors that influence the earnings received by a given worker. The most important factor is the skills and productivity that an employee brings to the job, which includes formal education, skills learned through work experience and the amount of time a person works. Data show that male employees tend to have more years of work experience than females, and they also work more hours per week on average than women. Men also tend to gravitate toward college majors with greater market value than women. For example, 80 percent of engineering and computer science majors are male, while two-thirds of communications, drama, dance, education and arts majors are female. There is nothing wrong with these voluntary choices, but these choices translate into differences in earnings after graduation, because labor market forces determine salaries for different college degrees. A second component is what economists call “compensating wage differentials” that help explain gender differences in earnings. Compensating wage differentials are differences in pay that are designed to attract employees to jobs that otherwise would be undesirable. The undesirable aspects of certain jobs can range from the mundane to the gruesome. For example, men have longer average commute times to their jobs than women. The average male in the United States spends 33 more hours commuting to work each year. While a longer commute for higher pay is an inconvenience, men also are much more likely to be injured or killed on the job. More-dangerous jobs pay higher wages on average than safer jobs. The 20 jobs with the highest occupational fatality rates are 94 percent male, and 92.5 percent of workplace fatalities are men. Relatively safe occupations such as office and administrative support and education and library occupations are three-quarters female. This disparity is one reason among many that explain why men earn more on average than women. Proponents of the gender pay gap myth incorrectly believe that any gender differences in earnings are the result of gender discrimination. But the reality is that men and women gravitate to different college majors, they have different levels of work experiences, they play different family roles, and they work in very different types of jobs. These gender differences reflect individual choices — not discrimination — and explain almost all of the gender earnings gap.

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Short Features

U.S. Women's Soccer Team Fights for Equal Pay

After the final for this year's women's soccer World Cup on July 7, some fans in the stadium in Lyon, France, broke into a chant that had nothing — and everything — to do with the action that had unfolded: “Equal pay!”1

A spectator holds a banner demanding equal pay for the U.S. women's soccer team during the women's World Cup final on July 7 in Lyon, France. Members of the U.S. women's team, which has won four World Cups, have sued to win equal treatment with the far less successful U.S. men's team. (Getty Images/Marc Atkins)

The fans were calling attention to the huge gap in prize money between men's and women's soccer. The total pool of prize money for the 24 teams in the 2019 women's tournament was $30 million. For the 32 teams in the 2018 men's World Cup, the pool was $400 million, and it will grow to $440 million for the 2022 tournament. The winning 2018 men's team got $38 million, the 2019 women's champion $4 million.2

The disparity was especially poignant because 28 members of the U.S. women's national team, which won the World Cup championship that day, had gone to court earlier in the year to demand equal treatment with the U.S. men's team in pay, playing conditions and promotion of games. (The suit is scheduled for trial in May.) The U.S. women's team has now won four World Cup titles, the men's team — zero.3

For some people, the lower prize money for the women's World Cup is a classic example of the unfair pay gap between men and women that exists across multiple industries, ranging from high-profile athletes and entertainers to the workaday world of offices and factories.

“It reflects the rage of everyday women, and captured a groundswell of irritation among many women who are thinking we are educated and we are working and we'll never get there,” says Ariane Hegewisch, program director of employment and earnings at the Institute for Women's Policy Research, a Washington think tank.

But others argue that the situation is not that simple — and that World Cup soccer actually illustrates these complexities. They say the difference in prize money is a case of basic economics: The men's World Cup generates vastly more revenue from ticket sales and television than the women's tournament, so the men's prize money pool inevitably will be larger as well.

“There's no question the U.S. female soccer team is great and the U.S. male team loses their games far more frequently,” says Robert Miller, professor of economics and strategy at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. “But the prize money is set by the market.”

Although the global television audience for this year's women's World Cup exceeded 1 billion, that is only about 28 percent of the viewership for the 2018 men's tournament, according to soccer's global governing body, the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA). FIFA estimates that the 2018 men's tournament generated more than $5 billion in revenue. FIFA says it does not know how much revenue the 2019 women's tournament yielded. The 2015 women's tournament generated about $73 million.4

Jennifer C. Braceras, director of the Independent Women's Law Center, a conservative organization focused on economic policy issues of concern to women, applauds the women's team for advocating for themselves — but is skeptical about claims of bias. “The only way to get more money is to ask for it,” she says. “But are they being discriminated against? No.”

The ability to obtain equal resources — one of the demands of the women's team members’ lawsuit — is just as important as equal pay, Hegewisch says. And she says the underlying reason for the pay differences between the men and women soccer teams is gender inequality. “It raises the issue of not just what the women earn, but how much is invested in their facilities and game to allow them to be their best,” she says.

To help rectify the imbalance, four Democratic senators — Dianne Feinstein of California, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire — earlier this year introduced the Even Playing Field Act, which requires that athletes on U.S. national teams receive equal pay and resources.5 A similar bill has been introduced in the House. Both versions are awaiting committee action.6

One question under debate is whether the pay controversies involving high-profile performers symbolize the broader challenges most women face in the workplace — or are unique to the rarified fields of sports and show business.

The U.S. women's soccer team has certainly captured the attention of everyday women who believe they work as hard or harder than their male peers and are just as educated, but are not making as much money, Hegewisch says.

But Braceras questions whether that is a fair comparison. “I don't believe the experience of elite athletes reflects the experience of everyday people,” she says.

Nicole Smith, chief economist for Georgetown University's Center on Education and the Workforce, says the argument that the disparity in soccer prize money is based on differing revenue streams actually tends to reinforce the case for pay equity in more conventional workplaces. Even if it's true that women's soccer draws less revenue, she says, “everyday women don't have to attract the resources to determine their salary.”

— Lisa Rabasca Roepe

[1] Daniel Politi, “Crowd in Stadium Starts Chanting ‘Equal Pay’ After U.S. Women's Team Wins World Cup,” Slate, July 7, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/yydq8vt9.

[2] Melissa Locker, “Here's how much Women's World Cup soccer players are paid compared to men,” Fast Company, June 7, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/y4btyzh5; Rachel Bachman, “What is the women's World Cup Worth? Not even FIFA knows,” The Wall Street Journal, Sept. 24, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/yxquzrjt.

[3] “Plaintiffs’ Collective Action Complaint for Violations of the Equal Pay Act and Class Action Complaint for Violations of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,” United States District Court, Central District of California, Western Division, March 8, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/y62bxw2x; Andrew Das, “Judge Sets May 2020 Trial Date in U.S. Women's Soccer Lawsuit,” The New York Times, Aug. 19, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/y4cnhvke.

[4] Bachman, op. cit.; “US Women's Soccer Team Demands ‘Equal Pay’ — Gets Reminded of Blowout Loss to 14-Year-Old Boys,” Pluralist, June 14, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/y3uauqrn.

[5] ”A Bill to amend chapter 2205 of title 36, United States Code, to provide pay equity for amateur athletes and other personnel, and other purposes,” U.S. Senate, accessed Oct. 25, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/y635t2pf.

[6] “H.R. 3882: Even Playing Field Act,” GovTrack, July 23, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/y36fzlf7.

Bibliography

Books

The Gender Pay Gap: Equal Work, Unequal Pay (In the Headlines) , The New York Times Educational Publishing, 2018. A collection of articles from The New York Times explores the gender pay gap and highlights how our understanding of the issue has evolved in the past decade.

Besen-Cassino, Yasemin , The Cost of Being a Girl: Working Teens and the Origins of the Gender Wage Gap , Temple University Press, 2017. An associate professor of sociology at Montclair State University in New Jersey argues that the gender wage gap begins during the teenage years when boys are paid more than girls.

Steidinger, Joan , Stand Up and Shout Out: Women's Fight for Equal Pay, Equal Rights, and Equal Opportunities in Sports , Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, March 2020. A clinical and sports psychologist says that despite gains in the sports arena, female athletes are still struggling to receive equal pay.

Articles

Anderson, David , et al., “Why Companies’ Attempts to Close the Gender Pay Gap Often Fail,” Harvard Business Review, Jan. 21, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/y7y2kcov. Four professors outline the common pitfalls companies make when trying to correct the gender pay gap.

Gerstmann, Evan , “Dispelling Myths About the Gender Pay Gap,” Forbes, June 6, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/y3qjwmey. A political science professor argues that when factors such as profession, qualifications, type of employer, seniority and hours worked are considered, the gender pay gap vastly decreases.

McGlone, Peggy , “Women are increasingly getting the top museum jobs. Will more of them finally get equal pay?” The Washington Post, July 2, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/y4txs2pt. Women are making their mark in the male-dominated museum world, but their pay still lags that of men.

Miller, Stephen , “U.S. Companies Are Working to Fix Pay-Equity Issues,” Society for Human Resource Management, May 13, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/y6crjepe. An editor looks at how companies are trying to close the gender pay gap by studying the problem and adjusting wages.

Schmidt, Samantha , “‘Victory for equal pay’: Judge rules Trump administration must require companies to report pay by gender, race,” The Washington Post, March 5, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/yyuqndny. Women's rights advocates hailed a U.S. District judge's decision reinstating a rule that requires companies to report data on wages by race and gender, saying the requirement will help shrink the wage gap.

Reports and Studies

“The Global Gender Gap Report 2018,” World Economic Forum, 2018, https://tinyurl.com/yxglyhce. A report from a nongovernmental organization looks at 149 countries and their progress toward gender parity in four areas: economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival and political empowerment.

“The State of Wage Inequality in the Workplace,” Hired, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/y5kx7mo7. Data gathered and analyzed by an online technology job recruiter shows that the gender pay gap remains wide, especially for older women and minorities.

Chamberlain, Andrew, Daniel Zhao and Amanda Stansell , “Progress on the Gender Pay Gap: 2019,” GlassDoor, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/y68qvnqt. Three economists examine the gender pay gap in eight countries and find that the adjusted gap in the United States has fallen from 6.5 percent in 2011 to 4.6 percent in 2018.

Clark, Jennifer , et al., “Five Ways to Win an Argument about the Gender Wage Gap (Updated 2019),” Institute for Women's Policy Research, Sept. 11, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/yd6prazs. A report by a Washington think tank asserts that women earn just 49 cents to the typical men's dollar.

Huang, Jess , et al., “Women in the Workplace 2019,” LeanIn.org and McKinsey & Co., 2019, https://tinyurl.com/y55wbf5c. A study by a women's advocacy group (LeanIn.org) and a consulting firm (McKinsey & Co.) argues women are not becoming senior managers because of barriers lower down in the corporate pipeline.

Vagins, Deborah J. , “The Simple Truth about the Gender Pay Gap,” American Association of University Women, Fall 2018, https://tinyurl.com/y74kbbpp. The gender pay gap continues and is the result of bias against working mothers, direct pay discrimination and other factors, according to a report by a group that promotes equity and education for women and girls.

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The Next Step

Higher Education

George, Dana , “You'll Never Guess Where Women Actually Earn More,” The Ascent, Oct. 10, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/y2ztbj6x. Women in Puerto Rico earn slightly more than men on average, primarily because women are significantly more likely to hold bachelor's degrees than men in the U.S. territory.

Harrison, David , “Women Slowly Shifting to Higher-Paying College Education Majors,” The Wall Street Journal, Oct. 4, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/y3knmmm5. Women tend to pursue college degrees that lead to lower-paying jobs, but new research suggests that may be changing.

Mathias, Dan , “New Report Says Women Will Soon Be Majority Of College-Educated U.S. Workers,” NPR, June 2019, https://tinyurl.com/y6cjmy7m. Even as women make up the majority of the college-educated labor force for the first time, the gender pay gap persists, partly because men with college degrees make an average of about $26,000 more annually than college-educated women.

Legislative Efforts

Diaz, Jaclyn , “States Look to Remedy Pay Gap as Federal Legislation Stalls,” Bloomberg Law, July 31, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/y5fgwq9e. As the Paycheck Fairness Act stalls in Congress, states are enacting statutes aimed at closing the pay gap.

Frazin, Rachel , “Cuomo signs gender pay equity legislation at women's soccer team parade,” The Hill, July 10, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/y2zme9d7. A New York state law requires “equal pay for substantially similar work” and bars pay differentials based on gender identity, race and other factors.

McGregor, Jena , “More states are banning questions about salary history in job interviews. What to say if you're asked about it anyway,” The Washington Post, Aug. 15, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/yygkeo73. A growing number of states ban employers from asking job applicants about salary history, but enforcement is difficult because some interviewers ask anyway, experts say.

Private Sector

Doward, Jamie, and Tali Fraser , “Hollywood's gender pay gap revealed: male stars earn $1m more per film than women,” The Guardian, Sept. 15, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/y6d6x4og. The gender pay gap among Hollywood performers has persisted since 1980 and widens as female stars age, according to economists.

Maddaus, Gene , “Disney Seeks to Throw Out Gender Pay Gap Lawsuit,” Variety, Oct. 21, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/y5bqknxx. The Walt Disney Co. wants a lawsuit by 10 employees dismissed, arguing that the women who filed it were in vastly different lines of business in the company and thus cannot bring a class-action suit.

Morad, Renee , “It will take this many years to close the gender gap in the global energy sector,” NBC News, Sept. 9, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/y3d3ufg5. Even though more women are assuming leadership positions in the energy sector, a new report suggests that it will take 70 more years for the gender pay gap to close within the industry.

Salary Negotiations

Dunlap, Tori , “I got $10,000 more when I negotiated my salary — here's the exact script I used,” CNBC, Oct. 17, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/y45s749s. A woman in her 20s shares her experience negotiating a higher salary than she was offered and offers advice to other young people, particularly women, on how to do it.

Greenfield, Rebecca , “New York City Offers Free Salary Negotiation Classes for Women,” Bloomberg, Aug. 19, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/y47s6ety. New York City has begun offering free two-hour workshops on salary negotiation to women as part of an effort to close the gender pay gap.

Olekalns, Mara, Ruchi Sinha and Carol T. Kulik , “3 of the Most Common Challenges Women Face in Negotiations,” Harvard Business Review, Sept. 30, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/y5ehm3rd. A study found that many women saw job negotiations as a battlefield and struggled to find a balance between being appropriately assertive and not aggressive enough.

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Contacts

Association of American University Women
1310 L St., N.W., Suite 1000, Washington, DC 20005
202-785-7700
aauw.org
Organization that promotes equity and education for women and girls.

Center on Education and the Workforce
3300 Whitehaven St., N.W., Suite 3200, Washington, DC 20007
202-687-7766
cew.georgetown.edu
Institute affiliated with Georgetown University's McCourt School of Public Policy that studies the link between education, career qualifications and workforce demands.

Independent Women's Forum
4 Weems Lane, #312, Winchester, VA 22601
202-807-9986
iwf.org
Conservative organization focused on economic policy issues of concern to women.

Institute for Women's Policy Research
1200 18th St., N.W., #301, Washington, DC 20036
202-785-5100
iwpr.org
Group that conducts research to shape policy and improve the lives and opportunities of women of diverse backgrounds, circumstances and experiences.

LeanIn.Org
855 El Camino Real, Building 5, Suite 307, Palo Alto, CA 94301
leanin.org
Nonprofit founded by Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg in 2013 dedicated “to offering women the ongoing inspiration and support to help them achieve their goals.”

National Committee on Pay Equity
555 New Jersey Ave., N.W., Washington, DC 20001-2029
pay-equity.org
Coalition of labor unions, women's and civil rights organizations and others that is working to eliminate sex- and race-based wage discrimination and achieve pay equity.

World Economic Forum
350 Madison Ave., 11th Floor, New York, NY 10017
212-703-2300
weforum.org
International nongovernmental organization focused on public-private cooperation that conducts research on gender pay parity, among many other issues.

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Footnotes

[1] “America's Women and the Wage Gap,” National Partnership for Women and Families, September 2019, https://tinyurl.com/y63xv364.

[2] Ibid.; Julia Carpenter, “Why men need to believe in the wage gap,” CNN Business, Feb. 20, 2018, https://tinyurl.com/y8da6kmc.

[3] Emily Todd VanDerWerff, “Report: Crazy Rich Asians sequels offered an Asian writer 1/8th of her white co-writer's salary,” Vox, Sept. 4, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/yy2lwhcg.

[4] David Searls, “Do Male Nurses Earn More? Survey Says Yes,” Onward Healthcare, accessed Oct. 30, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/y4uvgu42.

[5] Peggy McGlone, “Women are increasingly getting the top museum jobs. Will more of them finally get equal pay?” The Washington Post, July 2, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/y4txs2pt.

[6] Saadia Zahidi, “Accelerating gender parity in Globalization 4.0,” World Economic Forum, June 18, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/y3avjg24.

[7] Nikki Graf, Anna Brown and Eileen Patten, “The narrowing, but persistent, gender gap in pay,” Pew Research Center, March 22, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/y67swbdk.

[8] Diana Furchtgott-Roth, “Are Women Paid Less Than Men?” Manhattan Institute, 2016, https://tinyurl.com/y2fpeyk8.

[9] Searls, op. cit.

[10] Fahima Dossa et al., “Sex-Based Disparities in the Hourly Earnings of Surgeons in the Fee-for-Service System in Ontario, Canada,” JAMA Surgery, Oct. 2, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/y5e9t9a9.

[11] “The State of the Gender Pay Gap 2019,” PayScale, accessed Oct. 30, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/yd6zpznk.

[12] “Equal Pay Act of 1963 and Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009,” U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, accessed Oct. 31, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/zotxj9x; “Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,” U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, accessed Oct. 31, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/zz7c8rt.

[13] “The Wage Gap Over Time: In Real Dollars, Women See a Continuing Gap,” The National Committee on Pay Equity, accessed Oct. 30, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/yb6ho93l.

[14] Stephen J. Rose and Heidi I. Hartmann, “Still a Man's Labor Market: The Slowly Narrowing Gender Wage Gap,” Institute for Women's Policy Research, 2018, https://tinyurl.com/y32bbcqk.

[15] “Women's Earnings — The Pay Gap: Quick Take,” Catalyst, July 31, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/y2klqoox.

[16] Jess Huang et al., “Women in the Workplace 2019,” LeanIn and McKinsey & Co., October 2019, https://tinyurl.com/y55wbf5c.

[17] Daniel Bortz, “Real Estate Agent, Broker, Realtor: What's the Difference?” realtor.com, Oct. 20, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/y3lumksp.

[18] “Real Estate Brokers & Sales Agents,” Data USA, accessed Oct. 30, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/yxa3mnde.

[19] Claire Cain Miller, “Stay-at-Home Parents Work Hard. Should They Be Paid?” The New York Times, Oct. 3, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/y4ejxe6c.

[20] Amy Eagle, “A job once filled by men became a pink profession,” Chicago Tribune, April 26, 2006, https://tinyurl.com/y2cwyk8a.

[21] Fred Ouedraogo and Michael Dicks, “Are rising veterinarian salaries driving up the cost of care?” Veterinarian News, March 19, 2018, https://tinyurl.com/y45g3ohg.

[22] Ibid.

[23] Ariane Hegewisch and Adiam Tesfaselassie, “The Gender Wage Gap: 2018; Earnings Differences by Gender, Race, and Ethnicity,” Institute for Women's Policy Research, Sept. 11, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/y6ls4pje.

[24] “The Black Women's Pay Gap by the Numbers,” LeanIn.org, August 2019, https://tinyurl.com/y2mrkphk.

[25] “The Latina Pay Gap by the Numbers,” LeanIn.org, November 2018, https://tinyurl.com/yx98v8ys.

[26] Dina Gerdeman, “Minorities Who ‘Whiten’ Job Resumes Get More Interviews,” Harvard Business School, May 17, 2017, https://tinyurl.com/y45ckypm.

[27] Andy Kiersz, “The gender wage gap strikes every age group, but it's especially hard on older women,” Business Insider, March 8, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/y6bxrn99.

[28] “H.R.7 — Paycheck Fairness Act,” Congress.gov, accessed Oct. 30, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/yyj8kkhw; Juliegrace Brufke, “House Passes Paycheck Fairness Act,” The Hill, March 27, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/yy6ungx5.

[29] Astead W. Herndon, “Kamala Harris Announces Plan to Close the Gender Pay Gap,” The New York Times, May 20, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/y5kvlhbx.

[30] Elizabeth Warren, “Valuing the Work of Women of Color,” Medium, July 5, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/y5umd4ye.

[31] Samantha Schmidt, “‘Victory for equal pay’: Judge rules Trump administration must require companies to report pay by gender, race,” The Washington Post, March 5, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/yyuqndny.

[32] “Labor Code Article 3. Contracts and Applications for Employment [430–435],” California Legislative Information, accessed Oct. 30, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/y3yf954g.

[33] Valentin Bolotnyy and Natalia Emanuel, “Why Do Women Earn Less Than Men? Evidence from Bus and Train Operators,” working paper, Harvard University, Nov. 28, 2018, https://tinyurl.com/yddqldra.

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About the Author

Lisa Rabasca Roepe is a journalist who writes about the culture of work, personal finance and technology. Her work has appeared in Fast Company, Ozy, Family Circle, Good, Quartz, The Week, HR Magazine, Men's Journal, Eater and The Christian Science Monitor. She is on the board of directors of the American Society of Authors and Journalists.

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