Pew Research Center Finds Gender Pay Gap Has Barely Budged in Past 20 Years

The Pew Research Center has released a new analysis of the gender pay gap. This analysis reveals that as of 2022, women earned, on average, 82% of what men earned. These results are astonishingly similar to the same pay gap analysis in 2002, when women earned, on average, 80% of what men earned. The takeaway from these figures is that in the past two decades, the gender pay gap has barely decreased and seemingly refuses to close.

The Pew analysis is based on the wages of both full and part-time workers. The lack of progress in the past 20 years is significant, as major progress toward closing the wage gap occurred in the 1980s and 1990s, when women’s wages increased by 15 cents, rising from 65% of men’s wages to 80% by 2002.

The minimal progress is attributable, at least in part, to a society that continues to value women’s work less than men’s and distributes wealth and power based on gender. Moreover, increased levels of education aren’t improving the wage gap, which persists even though women are now more likely to have graduated from college than men.

The wage gap for Hispanic or Latina women, Black women, and disabled women remains even larger. However, the wage gap for workers ages 25 to 34 is smaller than for all workers ages 16 and older. In 2022, that group of female workers earned, on average, 92 cents for every dollar earned by men.

Other reasons for the persistent wage gap include the fact that some jobs that women predominantly hold tend to have lower wages. Caregiving and parenting responsibilities also tend to fall disproportionately on women, which can impact women’s wages. Gender discrimination and other factors that are harder to measure also may impact the wage gap.

Pay equity and transparency efforts are initiatives that many employers and jurisdictions have begun or plan to embark upon in the future. These efforts may help lessen the gender pay gap by investigating and dismantling systemic issues that may disadvantage women, racial minorities, and other protected classes in employment and pay equity.