gender wage gap

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This infographic shows the top five jobs in which women earn the most and least as a percentage of men’s earnings in the United States.

Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc./Patrick O'Neill Riley

gender wage gap, in many industrialized countries, systemic differences between the average wages or salaries of men and those of women.

One of the most important economic trends of the late 20th century was the dramatic increase in the number of women entering the paid labour force. As more women took jobs, the difference between the average wages or salaries of men and those of women decreased. However, men as a group continued to earn significantly more than women, a difference referred to as the gender wage gap. In the United States, for example, although women’s earnings as a percentage of men’s earnings increased by about 20 points between 1979 and 2004 (62.3 percent to 80.4 percent), they increased by only 1.5 points between 2004 and 2016 (80.4 percent to 81.9 percent).

Many factors have contributed to the declining wage gap, including an increase in women’s job-related skills and experience. In addition, more women now have careers that are uninterrupted by long absences for child-rearing, which tend to reduce wages.

Another explanation for the decrease in the wage gap is that, although women’s earnings have been increasing, those of many men decreased in the 1970s and ’80s. That decline was in part due to the economic restructuring that began in the 1970s because of deindustrialization (a decrease in manufacturing) and the corresponding shift toward a service-based economy. The loss of manufacturing jobs that occurred with deindustrialization appears to have depressed the wages of male workers more than those of female workers, partly because more male workers were employed in manufacturing jobs.

The gender wage gap appears to vary in size by education level, employment sector, occupation, and job title. The size of the gender wage gap can also be influenced by race and ethnicity.

Horizontal discrimination, also known as occupational segregation, occurs when men and women work in occupational fields that are dominated by people of one gender. Among professional occupations, for example, accountants, architects, and engineers tend to be mostly men, while nurses, social workers, and primary- and secondary-school teachers tend to be mostly women. Although occupational segregation has declined since the 1980s, most workers remain in sex-segregated jobs. Occupational discrimination fuels the gender wage gap because men’s occupations tend to pay better and have greater advancement opportunities.

Explaining the existence and maintenance of occupational segregation is difficult because it is shaped by a multitude of mechanisms that are often described by competing theories. Some of these mechanisms concern “supply” factors that have to do with the qualifications and abilities of individuals, gender-role socialization, workers’ values, the range of opportunities available to workers, and the size of the labour supply. Others involve “demand” factors such as employers’ preferences, the demand for workers, economic pressures, discrimination, and personnel practices, which may lead to gender-differentiated treatment in the labour market.

Most scholars acknowledge that a certain amount of self-selection plays a role in sorting men and women into different occupations, as women do appear to have different professional preferences than men. Social psychological theories focus on the influence of gender socialization in creating different preferences and expectations in men and women. Other theories have posited that women’s family responsibilities influence their choice of occupation; however, the extent to which this is true is greatly contested. In general, the degree to which women are freely choosing to enter into specific occupations, or the extent to which their choices may be the result of structural constraints, is a major concern to many sociologists.

Another important question for scholars studying horizontal segregation is why workers in female-dominated occupations are lower paid than those in male-dominated fields. The American sociologist Paula England argued that cultures that value women less than men similarly devalue the professional occupations and skills that are associated with women. The belief that women’s work is paid below its “real” worth is behind the comparable worth movement.

Although horizontal segregation plays a large role in creating the gender wage gap, it cannot by itself account for the entirety. A second process that also fuels the gender wage gap is vertical segregation. Vertical segregation, also known as hierarchical segregation, or the “authority gap,” refers to the fact that men are much more likely than women to be in positions of authority. A number of researchers have found a significant pro-male bias in promotion decisions that is not attributable to differences in seniority (length of service), education, or nonwork responsibilities.

Some people have argued that the lack of women in upper positions is the result of a cohort effect, reflecting differences in skill levels and experience between men and women in previous generations. Logically, if a cohort effect were the cause of vertical discrimination, then it would naturally decrease as older women leave the workforce and younger women (who are more similar to their male coworkers) become predominant. Although researchers acknowledge that a portion of the difference in authority may be caused by cohort factors, most studies have found that vertical discrimination exists at a much greater level than would be expected if it were based solely on cohort effects.

Several other factors are believed to influence vertical gender discrimination. Scholars have argued that a “glass ceiling” prevents or reduces the promotions of women beyond a certain point, especially in fields where they are the statistical minority. Theories of the glass ceiling argue that there are gender-based barriers to higher-status positions that result in men having greater access to these positions. The lack of female CEOs of major companies can be viewed as an example of the effect of the glass ceiling. The metaphor of the glass ceiling has been conceptualized in various ways. Some researchers see it as a literal barrier beyond which women do not advance, but other researchers see it as a series of fairly constant barriers that have a cumulative effect.

Within-job discrimination occurs when men are paid more than women who hold the same job and have comparable levels of skill and experience. Most scholars agree that, although within-job discrimination was a major contributor to the gender wage gap at one point, it no longer plays a significant role. However, just as the gender wage gap can vary by occupation, job title, and company, some evidence indicates that within-job discrimination might be contributing to the gender wage gap in particular occupations or companies.