The gender pay gap is a well-documented trend where women earn less than men in the same industry, with the glass ceiling being a factor. The gap varies by sector and age group, and is present in both the US and Europe. Despite claims that the gap is closing, studies show that it remains persistent and unexplained factors may be at play.
The gender pay gap is a sociological trend supported by statistical analyzes showing that the average median income of women is lower than that of their male counterparts in the same industry. While economic inequality by industry is well documented across genders in Western industrialized nations, it is not as clearly defined by occupations within industries. Concerning professions, the argument of gender pay gap studies is that women hold more menial roles in professions due to the glass ceiling, which is a tendency to promote men over women when equal qualifications and experience.
In the United States as of 2009, full-time working women earned an average weekly income of 80% of what their male counterparts earned. This varies widely, however, when looking at economic inequality by sector. In the construction industry, women earned 92.2% as much as men, while in the financial services industry, they barely earned more than 70% of what men earned. The gender pay gap also varies by age group, with the wage gap narrower among younger and lower-level workers than among older job segments of the population.
European Commission statistics show that the gender pay gap is also high in European countries. A 2009 study showed that Estonia had the widest discrepancy, with males earning more than 30% more than their female counterparts on average. Countries like Slovenia, Italy and Malta had the smallest income inequality metrics since 2009, with men earning between 2% and 7% more than women overall. On average, women in Europe earned 17% less than men in 2009. The reason given for such a high variation between countries is that, in those countries with low rates of pay discrimination, the female employment rate in low-skill jobs is smaller than elsewhere, and the labor market is not as segregated as in other countries.
Experts on international inequality often argue that the gender pay gap is closing as societies modernize and higher percentages of the population obtain advanced degrees. However, a study by the US Census Bureau of comparative earnings over several decades does not support this claim. While the gender pay gap in the United States has changed at times, widening in the 1960s and 1990s and narrowing somewhat in the 1980s, the general trend has been for men’s and women’s wages to follow a parallel path.
As general economic conditions affect wages, both men’s and women’s wages fall or rise in concert according to the effects consistently remaining separate from each other. Sex segregation among pay rates shows, if anything, a slowing level of convergence in modern nations. The cause of this has not been clearly defined and must go beyond the known factors. A 2006 study at Cornell University in the United States suggested that “…unmeasured characteristics…in labor market discrimination…” were responsible for the strength of the gender pay gap.
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