What’s behind the growing gender pay gap in the US?

NEW YORK – How big a setback has this been for working women in the US?

Although women who lost or quit their jobs at the height of the crisis have largely returned to the workforce, a recent finding highlights the price many paid for leaving: In 2023, the gender pay gap between men and women widened Women who work full-time This is the first year-over-year comparison in 20 years, according to an annual report from the US Census Bureau.

Full-time working women earned 83 cents on the dollar compared to men in 2023, down from a historic high of 84 cents in 2022. The Census Bureau called this the first statistically significant expansion in the ratio since 2003.

Economists trying to make sense of the data say it captures a complicated moment during the disjointed post-pandemic labor market recovery, when many women were finally working full-time again, particularly in hard-hit low-wage industries where they are overrepresented, such as hospitality , social work and care.

The news isn’t all bad: Wages rose last year for all workers, but faster for men. And while the gender pay gap has increased, it remains at 2019 levels before the pandemic hit.

SJ Glynn, the Labor Department’s chief economist, said it was too early to say whether 2023 was an outlier or the start of a worrying new trend in the gender pay gap. But she said that even a return to the pre-pandemic status quo was a reminder of how far behind women were in the first place and showed how the pandemic had slowed the path to gender equality.

While the pay gap reached historic lows in 2022, this may have been a “false narrowing” as the pandemic pushed so many low-paid women out of full-time jobs that it drove up average female median earnings, she told Noreen Farrell , executive director of Equal Rights Advocates and chair of Equal Pay Today, a coalition of groups advocating for gender equity in the workplace.

Hispanic women in particular exemplify the complexity of this moment. According to Census Bureau data analyzed by both the National Women’s Law Center and the National Partnership for Women and Families, they were the only demographic group of women overall whose wage gap increased between 2022 and 2023 compared to white men Working full time, slightly reduced and interest groups. The wage gap increased for black and Asian women, but remained the same for white women.

Although their wages are rising slightly faster than other women, Latinas remain among the lowest paid workers – with average full-time earnings of $43,880, compared to $50,470 for black women, $60,450 for white women and $75,950 for white men. Consequently, their rapid entry into full-time employment in 2023 helped slow average wage increases for women overall, which likely contributed to the expansion of the gender wage this year, according to Liana Fox, deputy head of the department for social, economic and housing Census Bureau.

Latinas have increasingly become a driving force in the U.S. economy as they enter the workforce at a faster rate than non-Hispanic people. Between 2022 and 2023, the number of Latinas working full-time increased by 5%, while the total number of women working full-time remained the same.

Ariane Hegewisch, program director for employment and earnings at the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, said the slight narrowing in the wage gap for Latinas may be due to their presence in highest-earning occupations increasing from 13.5% last year, according to an IWPR Up 14.2% analysis of federal labor data.

However, the share of Latinas in full-time, low-wage jobs also increased in 2023, she added.

According to a Department of Labor report examining the disproportionate burden of the pandemic on women, Latino workers have been among the hardest hit by the pandemic and had the highest unemployment rate of any major demographic group at 20.1% in April 2020.

Domestic workers in particular, most of whom are immigrants, felt the effects. Many lost their jobs, including Ingrid Vaca, a Hispanic home care worker for older adults in Falls Church, Virginia.

Vaca, who is from La Paz, Bolivia, contracted COVID-19 multiple times and was hospitalized for a week in 2020 because she had difficulty breathing. Her test result continued to be positive even after her recovery, preventing her from entering her family’s homes or her work for most of that year and the next year.

She had no money for food or rent. “It was very hard,” she said, describing how she lost clients while she was away and still struggles to find permanent, full-time work.

The Census Bureau calculates the gender wage gap by comparing only men and women who work full-time, year-round. But data that includes part-time workers paints a bleaker picture for women, said Jocelyn Frye, president of the National Partnership for Women & families.

Latinas, for example, receive just 51 cents for every dollar paid to white men under this measure, and their gender pay gap widened from 52 cents on the dollar in 2022, according to the organization’s report, which analyzed Census Bureau microdata.

Matthew Fienup, executive director of the Center for Economic Research at California Lutheran University & Forecasting said it expects gains in Latinas’ wages, educational attainment and contributions to U.S. GDP “to continue for the foreseeable future.” For women overall, he found that the gender pay gap has narrowed steadily since 1981, although it has occasionally widened from year to year.

“It is important not to place too much emphasis on a single year data point,” he added.

Nevertheless, the pace of progress was slow and there were periods of stagnation.

According to Seher Khawaja, director of economic justice at the national women’s civil rights organization Legal Momentum, the gender pay gap will continue to exist in the U.S. until the country addresses the structural problems that cause it.

“There are some fundamental problems that we’re really not fixing,” Khawaja said.

For example, the current economy relies heavily on women providing unpaid or underpaid care work for children and older adults. “Until we come to terms with the need to give care work the value it deserves, women will continue to be left behind,” Khawaja said.

While many Democrats and Republicans agree on the structural challenges facing women in the workforce, they are struggling to find common ground on policy solutions, including expanding paid family leave and providing protections for pregnant workers.

An ongoing fight centers on the Democrat-sponsored Paycheck Fairness Act, which would update the Equal Pay Act of 1963 by, among other things, protecting workers from retaliation for discussing their pay, a practice that advocates say helps to underwhelm workers to keep in the dark about wage discrimination.

Republicans generally opposed the bill, saying it was unnecessary and conducive to frivolous lawsuits. However, Vice President Kamala Harris reiterated her support for the Democratic-backed bill on Monday following the death of one of her most prominent supporters, equal pay icon Lilly Ledbetter.

Pay inequality now has far-reaching effects, explained Khawaja: “It’s not just women who suffer from it. It is their families, their children, who suffer from the lack of adequate income and compensation. And this drives intergenerational cycles of poverty and insecurity.”

___

The Associated Press’ women workforce and state government reporting receive financial support from Pivotal Ventures. AP is solely responsible for all content. At AP.org you can find the AP Standards for Working with Charities, a list of supporters and supported areas.