Before the pandemic, women in the U.S. earned only 89 cents for every dollar earned by a man. Although the gender pay gap is not equal, it has improved significantly since 1980, when women earned 36% less than men. However, the rate has remained relatively persistent over the past 15 years. The current recession caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has created new challenges for women in the labour market and led to large-scale job losses for women. This website will review some of the existing research on the gender pay gap and explore some of the solutions governments have adopted in recent years to address it. Another explanation for this gender pay gap is the distribution of domestic work. Couples raising a child tend to designate the mother to do most of the housework and assume the primary responsibility of childcare, so women tend to have less time to earn a salary. This widens the gender pay gap in the labour market, and people are now trapped in this cycle of self-reinforcing. [55] Figure E looks at low-wage, middle- and high-wage women and compares their wages to those of men of the same race and ethnic group. Here, white and Asian women with higher wages are the lowest paid compared to their male counterparts, that is, the gender pay gap is largest among whites and high-income Asians. The unadjusted gender pay gap is not in itself a measure of discrimination.

Rather, it combines differences in the average salary of women and men to serve as a benchmark. Pay gaps are caused by occupational segregation (with more men in higher-paid industries and women in lower-paid industries), vertical segregation (fewer women in managerial positions and therefore higher-paid positions), ineffective equal pay laws, women`s total paid working hours, and barriers to entry into the labour market (such as education levels and rate of lone parents). [30] In 2016, the EEOC proposed a rule to provide more information on workers` wages by gender to better monitor and combat gender discrimination. [87] In 2018, Iceland passed legislation to reduce the country`s wage gap. [88] Several states have also enacted laws expanding the definition of « equal » or « comparable » work and implementing consequences for violations of these laws. Maine amended its equal pay law in 2019. Like other state laws, the law prohibits unequal pay for equal work. In particular, the law requires equal pay for both sexes for « comparable work in workplaces that have comparable requirements in terms of skills, effort and responsibilities. » Finally, Maine law also protects workers who take steps to help enforce equal pay. A major piece of legislation, the Nebraska Equal Pay Act, also prohibits unequal pay for « comparable » work.

The law states that employers cannot reduce a person`s salary to meet the equal pay requirement. Similar to Maine law, the law prohibits discipline or termination of an employee who takes steps to enforce the provisions of the law. The Act also establishes the powers of the Nebraska Equal Opportunity Commission. While women`s and men`s incomes may change slightly each year with each new Census Bureau dataset, the gender pay gap will not close quickly without concerted action. Efforts to close the wage gap must address the various factors and multifaceted biases that weigh against women – particularly women of colour, LGBTQ women and women with other different identities – and their families. It`s about economic security and equality – and women and their families can`t afford to wait for both. The gender pay gap is quite small for adolescent workers in their early twenties, but the gap widens with age (Figure H). For typical working men, hourly wages increase until about age 45 and then plateau, but for typical working women, hourly wages decline earlier (in the 35-44 age group).

After about age 40, women`s wage growth stagnates and then declines earlier than men`s. This applies to measuring the gap based on median weekly earnings of full-time employees (Hill 2016). The increase in the gender pay gap at this stage of life reflects the disproportionate impact of family responsibilities on women`s careers. Other research shows that women have a gender pay gap from the beginning of their working lives, which will continue to grow significantly over the course of their careers, regardless of their education or work experience (Goldin 2014). In some fields – particularly highly skilled workers in high-paying jobs – workers are disproportionately rewarded for working very long and/or inconvenient hours on short notice. There seems to be little convincing evidence that this reflects the smart economic thinking of employers. For example, productivity suffers for employees in medical fields who work long hours (Lockley et al. 2007).

But these practices persist and affect women. As mentioned above, women in well-paying jobs experience a larger gender gap because they are penalized for not working long and rigidly. These strict working hours tend to impose a disproportionate burden on women, who are still responsible for more household chores and caring for children and the elderly than men. The most common analytical error people make when discussing the gender pay gap is the assumption that, as long as it is measured « correctly, » it will tell us exactly how gender discrimination affects women`s pay. A 2009 report for Australia`s Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs argued that alongside equity and justice, there are strong economic imperatives to closing the gender pay gap. The researchers estimated that reducing the gender pay gap from 17% to 16% would increase GDP per capita by about $260, mainly due to an increase in hours worked. Ignoring the conflicting factors associated with increasing women`s working hours, reducing the gender wage gap by 17% could amount to about $93 billion, or 8.5% of GDP. Alabama, for example, has adopted legal protections for candidates who choose not to disclose their salary history in order to get an interview or be hired in 2019. Washington State pursued a similar policy that same year. The law passed in Hawaii in 2018 prohibits employers from requesting salary history in advance and prohibits employers from taking discriminatory action against workers who discuss wages with other workers.

Maryland`s latest amendment to the Equal Pay Act went into effect in October 2020. According to the Society for Human Resource Management, the bill requires employers to provide candidates with a salary range for a potential position upon request. The bill also prohibits the disclosure of pay history and protects workers who inquire about their own wages. The main factors associated with the gender pay gap are full-time and part-time work, education, the size of the firm employing one person, and occupational segregation (women are underrepresented in managerial positions and well-paid occupations). [156] In part-time jobs, women earned 4.4% more than men in 2018[152] (6.5% in 2015, 5.5% in 2014). [157] GCSE or A-level skilled workers had a smaller wage gap in 2018. (Those who qualify for graduation saw little change.) [152] A 2015 study by the Press Association based on data from the Office for National Statistics found that 20-year-old women outperformed 20-year-old men by an average of £1,111, showing a reversal of the trend.