Gender Wage Gap May Be Much Smaller Than Most Think

Kolesnikova, Natalia, Liu, Yang, Regional Economist

The gap between earnings of male and female workers has declined significantly over the past 30 years. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that in 1979 median weekly earnings of full-time female workers were 63.5 percent of male workers' earnings, implying a gap of 36.5 percent. The earnings gap dropped to 30 percent in 1989 and to 23.7 percent in 1999. In the second quarter of 2011, the gap reached a low of 16.5 percent.

Despite the accuracy of these numbers, many researchers believe that the mere comparison of median weekly earnings of male and female workers presents an incomplete picture. First, women are likely to work fewer hours than men, which would make a gap in weekly …

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Publication information: Article title: Gender Wage Gap May Be Much Smaller Than Most Think. Contributors: Kolesnikova, Natalia - Author, Liu, Yang - Author. Magazine title: Regional Economist. Publication date: October 2011. Page number: 14+. © Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Jan 2009. Provided by ProQuest LLC. All Rights Reserved.

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