According to the latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau, women who work full time are paid only 77 cents to the dollar their male counterparts are paid. Over the last decade, the gender pay gap has held steady at 23 percent, and it shows no sign of budging. Women and their families cant afford that loss. We need fair pay not just for women, but for our nations economic vitality. Part of the pay gap is explained by the types of jobs in which women typically work, the number of hours they work, and the gaps in labor force participation that occur when family issues take women out of the workforce. But the entire pay gap cannot be explained away by these factors. A recent AAUW analysis found that among full-time workers one year after college graduation--well before most men and women start having children--women were paid, on average, just 82 percent of what their male peers were paid. After controlling for hours, occupation, college major, and other factors that affect pay, the gap shrank but did not disappear. An unexplained pay gap of 7 cents remained, and it is likely that bias accounts for at least some of this disparity. But this is only the beginning. These early disparities in income often have long-term economic consequences, such as lower lifetime pay, tighter family budgets, and eventually, reduced Social Security and other retirement benefits. Another AAUW report found that 10 years after college graduation, women were paid just 69 percent of what men were paid, and the unexplained pay gap increased to 12 percent. Among our elderly population, women are much more likely than men to live in poverty, with 11 percent of women over the age of 65 living in poverty compared with 6.6 percent of men.
Posted on: Wed, 02 Oct 2013 18:14:47 +0000
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