How can we Close the Persistent Gender Wage Gap?
By Monica We, a Spring 2013 Leadership Conference Education Fund Intern
The gender wage gap – where women working full-time earn just 77 cents for every dollar that men earn – continues to burden the female workforce. According to a recent report by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR), if the pace of change in annual earnings ratio does not improve, it could be another 45 years before the gender wage gap is closed.
The IWPR data indicate that progress on closing this gap has slowed significantly over the years. The annual gender earnings gap narrowed by more than 10 percentage points from 1981 to 1990, and decreased by only four percentage points from 1991 to 2000. The gap has narrowed by only about one percentage point since 2001.
Even if a woman and a man work the same job and perform the same functions, the wage ratio for women is 91 cents to every dollar that men earn. IWPR President Heidi Hartmann told USA Today that even fresh out of college with comparable degrees, young men have higher-wage jobs than young women. The American Association of University Women (AAUW) recently released a report, “Graduating to a Pay Gap,” which finds that “within a number of occupations, women were already paid less than men were paid just one year out of college. Among teachers, for example, women were paid 89 percent of what men were paid. In business and management positions, women were paid 86 percent of what men were paid.”
However, many women who experience pay discrimination often face obstacles to voicing their concerns to management, and rarely have the opportunity to assess whether they are being shortchanged. The workplace culture or power dynamics strongly discourage almost half of workers to discuss their paychecks with their colleagues. Due to these unfair circumstances, the Paycheck Fairness Act (PFA) was introduced in 2009 in an effort to close the loopholes of the Equal Pay Act of 1963 (EPA), which made it illegal for employers to pay unequal wages to men and women who perform substantially the same work. PFA would prohibit employer retaliation against employees who disclose or discuss their salaries while also allowing individuals to compare themselves to similarly situated employees to determine whether wage discrimination exists.
Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D. Md., and Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D. Conn., reintroduced the bill in January 2013, specifying that employers should be required to prove that “the pay disparity is truly related to job-performance – not gender.”
Civil rights activists and workers’ rights groups continue to push lawmakers to take action, despite Congress’ rejection of the Paycheck Fairness Act on two occasions.
“In today’s economic climate, women’s wages are even more critical components of working families’ struggle to make ends meet,” said Nancy Zirkin, executive vice president of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. “Yet women are often forced to raise their families on incomes lower than male colleagues performing the same jobs. These senators have sent the message to American women that they should be ineligible for an honest day’s pay to perform an honest day’s work. What could be more antithetical to the American Dream than that?”
Check out this infographic, “Equal Education, Unequal Pay,” for more on the effects of the gender wage gap:
