The gender wage gap is now the smallest it's been since it started being tracked in 1979
The future seemed bleak for working women after two decades of little progress in closing the pay gap and a pandemic-induced recession.
But the U.S. might be a small step closer to achieving equality for women in the workplace — or at least in their paychecks.
The difference in earnings between full-time working women and men is now the narrowest on record, according to an Axios analysis of data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which was published earlier this week.
Full-time working women had median weekly earnings of $1,001 last quarter, about 84% of the $1,181 median for men. It's the smallest the gap has been since 1979, the first year for which earnings data is available. That year, women's median earnings were 62% of men's.
A persistently tight labor market has afforded more women the opportunity to switch jobs and negotiate for better pay, says Julia Pollak, the chief economist at ZipRecruiter.
After pandemic disruptions, women are entering the workforce at a higher clip than ever before. As Pollak calls out, "The she-recession that lingered throughout 2022 appears to be turning into a she-boom."
As skill-based hiring becomes increasingly popular, Pollak adds, women have better chances of landing jobs in tech, finance and other high-paying industries that they might not have been eligible for five years ago.
"All of these small changes, getting rid of degree requirements, taking candidates with three years of experience instead of five, reduces discrimination in hiring and directly benefits women," Pollak notes.
Another recent change that's helped mothers and caregivers return to full-time work is improved access to child care, a critical sector that struggled with hiring shortages since the start of the pandemic.
Although child-care employment has not returned to pre-pandemic levels, hiring has "steadily increased" in most states, a recent report from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services found.
Ruth Thomas, a pay equity analyst at PayScale, says that the proliferation of pay transparency laws is another crucial piece that is helping close the gender wage gap. "Mandating upfront disclosures allows women to know whether or not a job offer is fair, and target workplaces that genuinely support equal pay," she says.
Although the latest numbers are encouraging, there's still "a lot more work to do" in terms of identifying the specific factors that allow the gender pay gap to exist at all, Thomas adds. As of June 2023, more than 25% of U.S. workers are covered under pay transparency laws, according to data from the National Women's Law Center, and at the federal level, the Equal Pay Act of 1963 outlaws gender-based pay discrimination.
"We're making slow progress on salary transparency and child care, but beyond that, what else is left to fix to close the pay gap?" says Thomas. "That's the bit employers seem to be struggling with."
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