The Hidden Sexism Lurking Behind the Pay Gap - Pacific Standard
Today is Equal Pay Day, which marks how far into the year the average American woman must work to earn what her male counterpart earned last year. The pay gap, for full-time, year-round workers, currently stands at 78 cents to the dollar and hasn’t narrowed for the past decade. At this rate, according to a recent report by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, we won’t achieve pay equality until 2058.
Of course, in a nation of 300 million diverse people with staggering economic inequality, exact earnings are determined by a complex interaction between individual choices and structural forces.
Recent research has determined that 20 to 40 percent of the gap is entirely “unexplained”—and likely involves at least some discrimination.Like all crude averages, the pay gap tells us a lot about the existence of a problem but little about the particular dynamics causing it. Even slicing the data further to show how the gap is worse for some subsets of women, such as women of color, doesn’t reveal much about exactly why it occurs.
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In response, progressives have pointed out that even after accounting for these factors, recent research has determined that 20 to 40 percent of the gap is entirely “unexplained”—and likely involves at least some discrimination. Women make less than men at every education level, at every wage level, and in nearly every job—including traditionally female-dominated ones—right from the start of their careers.…
Meanwhile, a study published in the American Sociology Review in February explored the financial burden of domestic violence. “Abundant empirical evidence documents the economic costs of abuse to individual women, including reduced wages, work hours, job experience, and employment stability,” the researchers wrote. A 2004 estimate determined that domestic violence contributes to an annual loss of nearly three million work days and $100 million in pay. It’s not difficult to see how these losses occur—whether it’s through their abusers’ attempts to control their employment or the difficulty of holding down a job while dealing with physical injuries and post-traumatic stress symptoms. In most states, it’s even perfectly legal to fire someone for being a victim of domestic abuse.
More: The Hidden Sexism Lurking Behind the Pay Gap - Pacific Standard
GAO Report linked above from 2003
Standford report also linked above.