In America and the U.K., the "gender pay gap"—the space that separates average male-worker wages from average female-worker wages—has been picking up steam as an important political topic, especially as elections near.
In the process, a lot of misinformation is also gaining traction.
Yet rigorous research on the gender pay gap paints quite a different picture than the political spin on it does.As evidence, see this recent paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research... looked at gender pay gap stats dating back to the 1950s and stretching through 2010.
...In 1980, American women's average hourly earnings were about 63 percent of men's, but by 1989, women were earning 73 percent of what men did. But since the 1980s, the gap has closed much less quickly.
In 2010, women were making 79 percent of men's overall wages.
In 2014, full-time female workers earned about 79 percent of what men did on an annual basis and about 83 percent when wages were measured weekly.
- Wage-gap narrowing wasn't tied to government policies.
In a section on the impact of government policies on the gender pay gap, Blau and Kahn explore whether "the time path of the increase in women's relative earnings appears compatible with an effect of [federal] laws and regulations."
In short: not really..."
Read on.
No comments:
Post a Comment