From zephyr@users.compumedia.comWed Sep 13 12:36:36 1995 Date: Sun, 10 Sep 95 15:44 PDT From: Kate McLaughlin Reply to: beijing-conf@tristram.edc.org To: owner-beijing-conf@tristram.edc.org Subject: Gender Gap Persists in U.S. Salary Scales >From the Seattle Times, September 10, 1995: ___________________________________________________ Gender Gap Persists in U.S. Salary Scales By Sonia Nazario Los Angeles Times Even as women have become nearly half of America's work force, a large gender gap persists in their pay. In 1990, full-time women workers earned an average of 66 percent of what men were paid, an increase from the 59 percent they earned a decade earlier, according to U.S. Census data. Women with college degrees earn, on average, only slightly more than men with high school diplomas, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. In administrative jobs, white women who are about the same age as white men and have a slightly lower level of education earn 58 percent of what their white male counterparts do -- the same percentage as in 1960. The pay for women tends to drop with each child they have. While white female administrators with no children make 67 percent of what their white male counterparts earn, those with two children make only 55 percent. Men with children experience no drop in earnings. Employers least prone to provide comparable pay for women: banking and insurance. The most equitable: government and the military. But the pay gap has narrowed sharply for younger women, who now earn 85 percent of what men are paid. Professional white women 30 years or younger in 1990, for example, garnered 84 percent of what their white male counterparts were paid. Among younger women workers -- who now have about the same education level as young men -- the pay gap is least in technical jobs and greatest in service jobs. One reason the gap has narrowed, the Labor Department said, is that the earnings of men have drifted downward in the past two decades. As older female workers with less education and experience than their male cohorts retire, experts say, the gender gap is expected to close further. What causes the gap? Overall, the education differences for adults 25 years and older remain significant: 24.8 percent of men have a bachelor's or advanced degree, com- pared with 19.2 percent of women. One government survey showed that women on average spend 15 percent of their potential work years away from the job, disrupting careers. They are heavily clustered in female-dominated fields such as teaching and nursing that are more conducive to family life but pay less than male-dominated fields such as law, business and engineering. But a National Academy of Science study found that up to half of the pay gap probably is the result of discrimina- tion. The Glass Ceiling Commission pointed to a 1990 study that tracked graduates from the nation's top 20 business schools and found that in their first year out, men earned 12 percent more than women. The gap, other studies have found, widens as men and women progress in their careers. ________________________________________________________