Today marks
“Equal Pay Day,” the date that symbolizes how far into the new year the average
American woman would have to work to earn what the average American man did in
the previous year.
Both men and women see inequalities in the workplace –
77% of women and 63% of men said “this country needs to continue making changes
to give men and women equality in the workplace,” according to a Pew Research Center survey last fall.
According to the White House, full-time
working women earn 77% of what their male counterparts earn.
This means that women have to work approximately 60 extra days, or about three
months, to earn what men did by the end of the previous year. However, our own estimate, which is
based on hourly earnings of both full- and part-time workers, finds women earn
84 percent of what men earn. Based on our estimate, it would take approximately
40 days, or until the end of February, for women to earn what men had by the
end of last year.
But for young women, the wage gap is even smaller – at
93 percent – meaning they caught up to their same-aged male counterparts by
roughly the last week in January of this year.
As our video explains, the estimated 16-cent pay gap
today has narrowed from 36 cents in 1980. Back then, the average woman would
have had to work approximately 90 days, roughly into the beginning of May, in
order to catch up with men’s earnings from the year before.
In spite of
its narrowing, the gender pay gap persists. Why is this? In our survey, women were more likely to say they had taken career
interruptions to care for their family. And research has shown that
these types of interruptions can have an impact on long-term earnings. Roughly
four-in-ten mothers say they have taken a significant amount of time off from
work (39%) or reduced their work hours (42%) to care for a child or other
family member. Roughly a quarter (27%) say they have quit work altogether to
take care of these familial responsibilities. (Fewer men say the same. For
example, just 24% of fathers say they have taken a significant amount of time
off to care for a child or other family member.)
Even though women have increased their presence in
higher-paying jobs traditionally dominated by men, such as professional and
managerial positions, women as a whole continue to work in lower-paying
occupations than men do. And some part of the pay gap may also be due to gender
discrimination – women are about twice as likely as men to say they had been
discriminated against at work because of their gender (18% vs. 10%).
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