Megan Rapinoe is a two-time World Cup champion who has
played to sold-out stadiums around the globe; what she has in common with
nearly every American woman is that she’s underpaid.
اضافة اعلان
On Wednesday, Rapinoe testified during a hearing held by US
Representative Carolyn B. Maloney, D-N.Y., to examine economic harm caused by
gender inequalities, particularly for women of color.
Wednesday was All Women’s Equal Pay Day, Maloney said. But
it’s not Equal Pay Day for all women.
Black women would have to work until August 3, 2021, to earn
what men made in 2020. For Latina women, the date doesn’t come until October 2.
“This is a disgrace,” Maloney said. “And it has long-term
consequences for women and families.”
Wage discrimination isn’t limited to any one sector or
income level.
Take Rapinoe, whose fight for equal pay has become something
of a calling card for the US women’s team, and who played a central role in the
team’s lawsuit on unequal pay filed in 2019.
“One cannot simply outperform inequality,” she said. “Or be
excellent enough to escape discrimination.”
If it can happen to me, she said, “it can — and it does —
happen to every person marginalized by gender.”
The New York Times looked at the history of Equal Pay Day,
the reasons for the wage gap and what can be done to close it.
— What is Equal Pay Day?
It’s a symbolic day that illustrates how far into the
current year American women would need to work to earn what their male
counterparts earned last year. Put another way, because there is a disparity in
what women and men are paid, women would need to work 389 days to earn what men
earn in just 365 days.
Race plays a part, too: For Black and Hispanic women, the
numbers are worse. For Asian women, the numbers skew a bit better.
Estimates vary on how much the wage gap will cost an
American woman over the course of her career. The National Women’s Law Center
puts it at $406,280 in lost income on average, but that number can top $1
million for Hispanic women and is just shy of $1 million for Black and Native
American women.
— How did it become a thing?
Equal Pay Day was established in 1996 by the National
Committee on Pay Equity. Wednesday marks the 25th. But debates around pay
equity date back much further than that.
Carolyn York, secretary-treasurer of the National Committee
on Pay Equity, pointed out in an email that in 1942, as huge numbers of women
began replacing men in the workforce, the National War Labor Board urged
employers to make “adjustments which equalize wage or salary rates paid to
females with the rates paid to males for comparable quality and quantity of
work on the same or similar operations.” But two decades on, in the 1960s,
women were still earning only around 59 cents for every dollar a man made.
— Do other countries have a gender wage gap?
Of course they do. According to a study by the Organization
for Economic Cooperation and Development, the United States falls behind Canada
and ahead of Mexico. In addition to Canada, other countries that have a smaller
pay gap than the United States are Romania, Colombia, Belgium, Costa Rica, Denmark,
Norway ... and the list goes on. And on.
— Has the pay gap narrowed over time?
Yes, but not by much. We’re talking pennies. This year, it’s
estimated that American women will earn around 82 cents for every dollar that a
man earns. A decade ago in 2011, it was 77 cents. In 1996, the first “official”
Equal Pay Day, it was around 74 cents. And this top-line number doesn’t account
for differences in earnings among different racial groups.
— How is the wage gap number calculated?
The pay gap refers to the ratio of female to male median
annual earnings for full-time workers. Think of it as a fraction: The numerator
is the difference between male and female median earnings, and the denominator
is male median earnings. The actual number might look different depending on
the source it’s coming from, because some sources factor in characteristics
like age, family size, education level and industry.
“We treat this issue as if you could summarize it in one
number,” said Claudia Goldin, an economics professor at Harvard University.
“It’s the headline,” not really the full picture.
— Are there jobs where women are better paid than men?
Not according to C. Nicole Mason, president of the Institute
for Women’s Policy Research. When men enter female-dominated sectors like
nursing or education, the job begins paying more, she explained. But the
inverse is not true: “When women enter male-dominated spaces, they don’t get
paid more than men.”
— How long will it take to close the pay gap if we do
nothing about it?
Mark your calendars for 2059; if current trends continue,
the gender wage gap is expected to close in a mere 38 years. For Black and
Hispanic women, the deadline is a whole century away. If we do nothing, “my
daughter, and daughter’s daughter, will not see pay equity in their lives,”
Mason said.
— So what exactly explains the gap?
There are many factors at play, according to the American
Association of University Women.
One of them is that the fields in which women dominate tend
to pay less than fields dominated by men. This is irrespective of education or
skill required.
The “motherhood penalty” also complicates the wage gap. Moms
are less likely to be hired, they receive lower salaries when they are, and are
less likely to be tapped on the shoulder for promotion. (Ironic given research
suggests moms are some of the most productive employees.)
And women work around two-thirds of the low-paying jobs in
the United States; jobs that not only put workers at an economic disadvantage,
but also tend to be more unstable.
There is also “invisible labor” — things like caregiving
responsibilities and household chores — that women do in addition to their
full-time work.
“Women perform up to 30 percent more unpaid labor,” Mason
said. Not to put too fine a point upon it, but “unpaid labor is unpaid.” And
it’s very hard — if not impossible — to do both your job and take care of the
household at the same time.
There’s also good old-fashioned sexism at play: Even when
men and women are performing the exact same jobs, women tend to receive less
compensation thanks to overt or unconscious biases, as well as stereotypes that
make it more difficult for women to negotiate.
The pay gap is caused by a “layering effect” of all of these
things, said Kimberly Churches, CEO of the American Association of University
Women. Ultimately, “this really is how we value women and how we value women of
color in our society,” she said.
— Did COVID make it worse?
In a year of devastating job loss, especially for women —
hence the talk of a “she-cession” — the Institute for Women’s Policy Research
released research that seemed, on its face, like good news. In 2020, it found
the weekly gender wage gap for full-time workers shrunk to 17.7 percent from
18.5 percent. Seems positive, right? Not so fast.
As Goldin of Harvard explained, if the female labor force is
reduced, but most of those reductions are from the bottom part of distribution
(restaurant servers and retail workers, for instance), then women’s wages
relative to men’s will rise.
This manifests as an overall rise in women’s wages. And
that’s what happened here. But underneath the top-line number, Mason pointed
out, many, many lower-paid female workers are struggling.
— What should companies do about it?
Closing the wage gap demands an investment of time and
resources.
First, companies can audit workers’ pay and collect data to
determine the levels of disparity between their male and female workers, said
Seren Fong, a vice president at Catalyst. Salesforce, for example, committed to
reviewing all its workers’ salaries in 2015, and over the following years spent
more than $9 million on adjustments to give women equal pay.
Salary bands, which give the range of pay for a given role,
can also help level the playing field between male and female workers in salary
negotiations. (Though broadly speaking, a wide salary band can provide “too
much range to pay people unequally,” Mason said.)
— And governments?
The Equal Pay Act, passed nearly 60 years ago, made it
illegal to discriminate by sex in setting wages. But in practice, it can be
hard for women to know whether they’re actually being paid equally. It’s not
common to ask your colleagues what they make while you’re chatting by the water
cooler.
In the last decade, more than a dozen states and the
District of Columbia have adopted legislation prohibiting pay secrecy in the
workplace. Still, a 2017-18 survey found that nearly half of full-time workers
were discouraged or prohibited from talking about their pay, meaning more
legislation and enforcement is needed.
Churches also supports passing the Paycheck Fairness Act at
a federal level, “so we can ban the use of salary history questions in the
hiring process.” Such questions “just compound women’s lack of earnings going
forward as they negotiate their salaries.”
— And individuals?
Ask your colleagues how much they make, as awkward as that
may sound.
Negotiation is also key. Research shows that women who
consistently negotiate their salaries make more than $1 million more over the
course of their lifetimes, compared with those who don’t. But of course, COVID
hasn’t helped: A new survey from AnnElizabeth Konkel of Indeed suggests women
feel even more uncomfortable asking for a raise or promotion than they did
prepandemic.
