Gender pay gap in the United States

Susan B. Anthony understood that achieving the right to vote was essential for securing lasting equality for women, as it would prevent them from repeatedly struggling with the same issues.

Dedicated to this cause, she tirelessly traveled extensive distances, delivered countless speeches, collected thousands of petition signatures, and organized suffragist efforts to advance the movement for women's suffrage.

The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 made it easier for workers to file wage discrimination complaints by extending the time they have to take legal action, responding to issues raised in a Supreme Court case.

The Paycheck Fairness Act, introduced in 2009 and repeatedly reintroduced, sought to make equal pay laws stricter but faced ongoing Senate opposition.

From lowest to highest, they were "other life, physical, and social science technicians" (102.4 percent), "bakers" (104.0), "teacher assistants" (104.6), and "dining room and cafeteria attendants and bartender helpers" (111.1).

[23] According to a 2020 study by technology job search marketplace Hired, the gender pay gap might be increasing in tech work due to differences in expectations when negotiating salaries.

[30] According to Andrew Beveridge, a professor of sociology at Queens College, between 2000 and 2005, young women in their twenties earned more than their male counterparts in some large urban centers, including Dallas (120%), New York (117%), Chicago, Boston, and Minneapolis.

[44] Using Current Population Survey (CPS) data for 1979 and 1995 and controlling for education, experience, personal characteristics, parental status, city and region, occupation, industry, government employment, and part-time status, Yale University economics professor Joseph G. Altonji and the United States Secretary of Commerce Rebecca Blank found that only about 27% of the gender wage gap in each year is explained by differences in such characteristics.

[46] Similarly, a comprehensive study by the staff of the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that the gender wage gap can only be partially explained by human capital factors and "work patterns."

"[47][48][49] Using CPS data, U.S. Bureau of Labor economist Stephanie Boraas and College of William & Mary economics professor William R. Rodgers III report that only 39% of the gender pay gap is explained in 1999, controlling for percent female, schooling, experience, region, Metropolitan Statistical Area size, minority status, part-time employment, marital status, union, government employment, and industry.

"[51][52][53] In a 1997 study, economists Francine Blau and Lawrence Kahn took a set of human capital variables such as education, labor market experience, and race into account and additionally controlled for occupation, industry, and unionism.

[55] Economist June O'Neill, former director of the Congressional Budget Office, found an unexplained pay gap of 8% after controlling for experience, education, and number of years on the job.

and continued "In addition, at a practical level, the complex combination of factors that collectively determine the wages paid to different individuals makes the formulation of policy that will reliably redress any overt discrimination that does exist a task that is, at least, daunting and, more likely, unachievable."

This affects women's ability to pay off student loan debt since college isn't cheaper for a woman even though she can expect to make less after she earns a degree than her male peers.

The researchers found statistically significant pay differentials between jobs defined as "male" and "female," which suggest that gender-based discrimination, arising from occupational stereotyping and the devaluation of the work typically done by women, influences salary allocation.

"[86] Based on data from the 1980s, economists Blau and Kahn and Wood et al. separately argue that "free choice" factors, while significant, have been shown in studies to leave large portions of the gender earnings gap unexplained.

[87][88][89][90] Shelley Correll, Michael Lovaglia, Margaret Shih et al., and Claude Steele show that these gender status beliefs affect the assessments people make of their own competence at career-relevant tasks.

Further, the OECD argues that women's educational choices "may be dictated, at least in part, by their expectations that [certain] types of employment opportunities are not available to them, as well as by gender stereotypes that are prevalent in society.

[108][109] David Neumark, a professor of economics at the University of California, Irvine, and colleagues (1996) found statistically significant evidence of sex discrimination against women in hiring.

In an audit study, matched pairs of male and female pseudo-job seekers were given identical résumés and sent to apply for jobs as waiters and waitresses at the same set of restaurants.

[23] A study by Wendy M. Williams and Stephen J. Ceci found that female applicants were strongly favored over men in an experiment designed to assess bias in hiring for professors in biology, engineering, economics and psychology.

Joan C. Williams, a distinguished professor at the University of California's Hastings College of Law, raised issues with its methodology, pointing out that the fictional female candidates it used were unusually well-qualified.

[121] Organizational research that investigates biases in perceptions of equivalent male and female competence has confirmed that women who enter high-status, male-dominated work settings often are evaluated more harshly and met with more hostility than equally qualified men.

[64] The economic risk and resulting costs of a woman possibly leaving jobs for a period of time or indefinitely to nurse a baby is cited by many to be a reason why women are less common in the higher paying occupations such as CEO positions and upper management.

In a subsequent audit study, Correll et al. found that actual employers discriminate against mothers when making evaluations that affect hiring, promotion, and salary decisions, but not against fathers.

[64] The Bureau of Labor Statistics investigated job traits that are associated with wage premiums, and stated: "The duties most highly valued by the marketplace are generally cognitive or supervisory in nature.

Of course, none of these assumptions applies in full and if one or more of them is sufficiently at variance with the real world, actual compensation may be less than utility-offsetting, nonexistent, or even negative – a combination of low pay and poor working conditions.

[199] In June 2017, Governor Kate Brown signed into law the Oregon Equal Pay Act, which forbids employers from using job seekers' prior salaries in hiring decisions.

Nonetheless, the organizers acknowledge that the chart is based on a simple male-female idea of gender and doesn’t show the full picture of wage inequality, highlighting the need for more research and deeper conversations on the topic.

[212] Serena Williams, a renowned tennis player, addressed the issue of gender pay disparities in a discussion with Glamour magazine, emphasizing that inequities exist even in sports.