A number of articles have been published recently regarding pay inequality and a recent Conditions of Education Study. Statistics indicate that the number of women in undergraduate programs has grown more than double the rate of men's enrollment. Women are also gaining ground in earning degrees that have traditionally gone to men, receiving more than half of all business degrees. Professional degrees such as law and medicine are now earned by nearly 50% women, up from 22% a generation ago.
Yay for us, right? Not so fast. Because according to a study by the Institute for Women's Policy Research, women are still earning far less than men in the workplace. Since higher degrees generally indicate higher earnings, it would stand to reason that the variable at play must be the battle of the sexes, and a number of articles have said the same.
As a feminist I'm sensitive to any indication of bigotry at play, but I hesitate to yell "fire" when I smell smoke. Certainly there is still a wage gap between genders, but the COE numbers do not necessarily prove cause-and-effect.
Let's start with what might be the most ill-quoted statistic of all time: women earn 75 cents for each dollar a man earns. True. What this quote fails to indicate, however, is that this number is based on every full-time worker, whether they be a teacher or an architect. Though more business and engineering degrees are earned by women than ever before, the majority of bachelor's degrees that women earn are still in health care (mainly nursing), education, and psychology. A teacher earns less than an architect, and there are still far more female teachers than female architects. The gap is in the type of employment sought by each gender, and the wages are simply the effect.
But what about recent studies that women are still earning less for comparable jobs? Perhaps we need only to ask Father Time. The equal number of women earning degrees in fields such as law are a recent development, appearing somewhere in the past twenty years. This means the women graduating law school, passing bar exam, and seeking jobs at law firms are still fairly young. Even if each of these women has made partner by now, she will still be earning less than a senior partner twice her age, who is likely male. In twenty years this gap could shrink when the recent college grads age and there are as many women in senior positions as men.
The COE and IWPR studies also fail to take into account time off to spend with family, which is still done mainly by women. Additionally, there are other factors to consider, like the fact that women are less likely to negotiate an offered salary. There are numerous variables in the wage gap that are often overlooked in the haste to label things unequal.
Or it could, after all, simply be a good old-fashioned dose of sexism. However, the numbers released in these studies do not point to that. Arguing the contrary is fallacy. In the meantime, let's celebrate all the women who don't think twice before becoming scientists, engineers, doctors, or anything else that was once labeled "men only."
If you care to read more about women and work, check this out: what stay-at-home mothers are worth.
