5 Fast Facts: The Gender Wage Gap (2024)

FAQs

What are some interesting facts about the gender pay gap? ›

Using more detailed and expansive data than was previously available, the analysis shows that about a third of the gap between full-time, year-round working men and women's wages can be explained by worker characteristics, such as age, education, industry, occupation, or work hours.

The largest identifiable causes of the gender wage gap are differences in the occupations and industries where women and men are most likely to work. In 2023, Black women lost $42.7 billion and Hispanic women lost $53.3 billion in wages as compared to white men due to the impact of occupational segregation.

Yes, you read that right — over the course of their lifetimes, there is an earning difference of US$172 trillion between men and women. And here's why — an employed woman will still only make 77% of a man's wages. And that gap can change depending on a woman's race, education, and more.

Stats. Overall, women are not paid as much as men, even when working full time and year round. On average, women working full time, year round are paid 83.7% of what men are paid. This inequity is even greater for Black and Hispanic women.

These factors include: conscious and unconscious discrimination and bias in hiring and pay decisions. women and men working in different industries and different jobs, with female-dominated industries and jobs attracting lower wages.

Though the gender wage gap probably dates to the beginnings of civilization, it emerged as a political issue in the U.S. in the 1860s under the rallying cry of "Equal Pay for Equal Work."

The gender pay gap – the difference between the earnings of men and women – has barely closed in the United States in the past two decades. In 2022, American women typically earned 82 cents for every dollar earned by men.

How can we fix the gender pay gap? ›

Employee discontent: Unequal pay erodes trust and engagement among your workforce; disgruntled employees are more likely to underperform, seek alternative employment or even initiate legal proceedings, adding further strain to your business resource and budget.

The “pink tax” is the concept that women's products and services tend to be priced higher than men's, a type of gender-based price discrimination. Over the years, this tax has been coined as the “pink tax” because most manufacturers use the color pink to market and brand products specifically designed for women.

Gender issues include all aspects and concerns related to women's and men's lives and situation in society, to the way they interrelate, their differences in access to and use of resources, their activities, and how they react to changes, interventions and policies.

Gender pay gaps represent one of today's greatest social injustice. According to the ILO Global Wage Report 2018/19, women earn on average about 20 per cent less than men, although there are wide variations across countries.

Heavily male-dominated industries — such as finance, insurance, science and tech — have the widest gender pay gaps. Securities, commodities, and financial services sales agents and financial clerks have the biggest differences in earnings between women and men.

The average gender pay gap is a good measure of the collective remuneration of a group. As the average is skewed by exceptionally high or low salaries, it will show if earnings are particularly concentrated for one gender, for example, more men in higher earning positions.

Though the gender wage gap probably dates to the beginnings of civilization, it emerged as a political issue in the U.S. in the 1860s under the rallying cry of "Equal Pay for Equal Work."

Because a larger proportion of women are employed part-time, and part-time workers tend to earn less per hour, the gender pay gap for all employees is considerably larger than the full-time and part-time gaps. Median pay for all employees was 14.3% less for women than for men in April 2023.