Women & The Gender Pay Gap

Discussing the Gender Pay Gap in the U.S.
An excerpt from a 3 part series on Why Women Get Paid Less: The Truth Behind the Gender Pay Gap published in The Ladies Club Magazine.

In reviewing some of my research findings relating to the gender pay gap between men and women, some contributing factors point to gender and race discrimination, lack of education, social attitudes toward women and the professional direction that they choose.

In a nutshell, the evidence led me to the following:

1) women get paid less because they are not properly trained or equipped for salary negotiations 2) they work shorter hours 3) select less desirable career paths 4) put their careers on hold due to child-rearing and other family-related obligations and 5) racism.

To date, the Pew Research Center reports that: “In 2018, women earned 85% of what men earned,… of both full-and part-time workers in the United States.1 Additionally, there is substantial evidence that women are the primary partners in marriage which experience career interference in her respective household when counterbalancing career and family life.

Further data indicates that racial and gender wage gaps are still standing strong in our country. As stated by The Pew Research Center, women of color earned 83% in comparison to their white male coworkers.2

According to the Economic Policy Institute, “Black women come close to wage parity with black men — but overall, they earn 65 cents for every dollar a man makes.”3

Additionally, “… a 2013 Pew Research Center survey found that about one-in-five women (18%) say they have faced gender discrimination at work, including 12% who say they have earned less than a man doing the same job because of their gender.”4

In 2017, the same Pew Research Center conducted a survey which concluded that: “four-in-ten working women (42%) said they have experienced gender discrimination at work, compared with about two-in-ten men (22%) who said the same.”5

Moreover, survey data points to the fact that even larger wage gaps can be ascribed to women of color as well as Hispanic workers which are not college educated and that: “U.S. workers with a four-year college degree earn significantly more than those who have not completed college.”6

Contrary to an article printed in the New York Times entitled “Womansplaining The Pay Gap,” Jessica Bennet, author of The Feminist Fight Club and gender editor of The Times affirms that even with a higher level of education, women do not receive equal compensation in comparison to their male colleagues. This is also the case for educated women who do not have children.7

This also brings our attention to another stark reality regarding college education for women in the form of high debt due to student loans. Because “More Women than men go to college and grad school, and they take out larger student loans — landing them with more than $800 trillion in student debt, according to the American Association of University Women.” On the other hand, despite all of these efforts, “… less-educated men still outearn women with advanced degrees.”8

Whereas, sources proclaim that women lack the proper negotiation skills to attain proper raises and promotions, Bennett refers to a study in 2018 located in the Harvard Business Review which “found that — perhaps as a result of all that talk about women not negotiating, —women are asking for raises as often as men.”9

For more gender pay articles, click on the Download Articles section.

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Sources:

Nikki Graf, Anna Brown, and Eileen Patten, “The Narrowing, but Persistent, Gender Gap in Pay,” Pew Research Center (Pew Research Center, March 22, 2019), https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/03/22/gender-pay-gap-facts/

Patten, “Racial, Gender Wage Gaps Persist in U.S. despite Some Progress,” Pew Research Center (Pew Research Center, July 1, 2016), https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/07/01/racial-gender-wage-gaps-persist-in-u-s-despite-some-progress/

Helaine Olen, “Data Center: Mapping the Gender Wage Gap,” Inc., June 2018, p. 58)

Eileen Patten, “Racial, Gender Wage Gaps Persist in U.S. despite Some Progress,” Pew Research Center (Pew Research Center, July 1, 2016), https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/07/01/racial-gender-wage-gaps-persist-in-u-s-despite-some-progress/

Maya Salam, “Womansplaining The Pay Gap,” The New York Times, April 2, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/02/business/equal-pay-day.html

Helaine Olen, “Data Center: Mapping the Gender Wage Gap,” Inc., June 2018, p. 58)

Maya Salam, “Womansplaining The Pay Gap,” The New York Times, April 2, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/02/business/equal- pay-day.html)

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