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Concept
Gender pay gap
Summary
The gender pay gap or gender wage gap is the average difference between the remuneration for men and women who are working. Women are generally found to be paid less than men. In the United States, for example, the average annual salary of a woman is 83% that of a man. However, this figure changes when controlled for confounding factors such as differences in hours worked, occupations chosen, education, job experience, and level of danger at work. Attempts to control for these factors arrive at adjusted figures from 95% to 99%.
The reasons for the gap link to legal, social and economic factors. These include topics such as discrimination based on gender, the motherhood penalty vs. fatherhood bonus, parental leave, and gender norms. Additionally, the consequences of the gender pay gap surpass individual grievances, leading to reduced economic output, lower pensions for women, and fewer learning opportunities.
The gender pay gap can be a problem from a public policy perspective in developing countries because it reduces economic output and means that women are more likely to be dependent upon welfare payments, especially in old age.
In the United States, women's pay has increased relative to men since the 1960s. According to US census data, women's median earnings in 1963 were 56% of men's. In 2016, women's median earnings had increased to 79% of men's. Analysis from the Institute for Women’s Policy Research published in 2017 predicted that average pay would reach parity in 2059.
According to a 2021 study on historical gender wage ratios, women in Southern Europe earned approximately half that of unskilled men between 1300 and 1800. In Northern and Western Europe, the ratio was far higher but it declined over the period 1500–1800.
A 2005 meta-analysis by Doris Weichselbaumer and Rudolf Winter-Ebmer of more than 260 published pay gap studies for over 60 countries found that, from the 1960s to the 1990s, raw (aka non-adjusted) wage differentials worldwide have fallen substantially from around 65% to 30%.
Official source
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