The State of Gender Pay Equity, Part 1 of 4

Barbie has had hundreds of careers in her lifetime - there’s Cashier Barbie, Doctor Barbie, there’s even an Astronaut Barbie.  Mattel may have promoted a wide spectrum of career oriented Barbies, but never really talked about how much income Barbie would earn in her varied careers.   And does she make as much as Ken?  Given they are dolls, or more recently, characters in a movie, their actual incomes are not known (or real, for that matter).  But we do know that the two stars of the movie, Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, both made the same salary: $12.5 million.  

So, on the Barbie movie set, there was gender pay parity.  But those are A-list movie stars.  How does gender pay equity look like for the rest of us, those of us that do not live in a dreamhouse?

There has been much discussion, action, and policy in the past several decades regarding gender pay equity. Women have historically made less than men, but the gap has been shrinking over time.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics recently updated a report on women’s earnings, with new data from 2021. Let’s see what the current situation looks like now.

In 1979, women made on average 62 cents on the dollar compared to men. In 2021, it’s 83 cents on the dollar. So in a little over 40 years, the gap has reduced by about half.  

The changes in gaps are not uniform and different types of workers experience different gaps. Hourly workers, for instance, see a bigger improvement in pay equity gap over time.  It improves from 64% in 1979 to 89% in 2021, eliminating about three quarters of the gap.  It should be noted that even though the gap is smaller, wages have been more stagnant for lower wage, hourly workers in the past 20 years.

The story is even better for part time workers.  On average, part-time women workers make 103% of male part time workers income.  Thus, that means the pay gap is the biggest for salaried workers. 

What causes this gap?  There are several reasons that have historically been mentioned to justify the gap.  Women leaving the workforce to raise children is part of it, and the data show that women with children do indeed make less.   Women with children make 76 cents on the dollar compared to men (vs 83 cents for all women).  And women with young children (under 6) make only 73 cents on the dollar.  Women with no children make 88 cents on the dollar. 

Another reason is the types of jobs women have vs men.  Women historically had lower wage jobs available to them compared to men, though that has been changing. A simple example is in healthcare, where women still make up over 80% of registered nurses, while men make up the majority of doctors, and doctors make more money.

But there is a lot more to the story than that.  We will look at some of the more surprising findings in this series of articles on gender pay equity.  In Part 2, we see how pay equity gaps change as women advance in their careers.