STILL Unequal
Women may have made great strides in recent decades toward equality with men. But today MSNBC reports that there is STILL a stark pay gap for US college-educated women. According to a report released by the American Association of University Women Educational Foundation, one year after receiving their college degree, women make a mere 80 percent of that of their male classmates.
MSNBC quotes Catherine Hill, director of research at AAUW. *These employees don’t have a lot of experience and, for the most part, don’t have care-giving obligations, so you would expect there to be very little difference in the wages of men and women. But we find that women already earn less – even when they have the same major and occupation as their male counterparts.*
The 80 percent difference in pay is the good news. The bad news is that 10 years down the road that difference increases to 69 percent. Not only that, but by that point college-educated men have more authority in the workplace and are more likely to be involved in the hiring and firing, supervising, and setting pay than their female counterparts are. Those are especially disappointing facts considering the study also showed that while in college, women outperformed men academically, with higher grade point averages in every major subject, including math and science.
To read the full MSNBC report, go to: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18274861/
Labels: college graduates, pay, unequal, women
posted by Woman-Centric Matters @ 12:38 PM
5 Comments:
I find this survey really interesting! It is not like I can walk into my HR department and ask them, "Hey is that guy making the same as me or more?" I think some of these studies can be misleading because it does not take into consideration career chocies and regional cost of living standards.
Thank you for your comment. Good point about not being able to walk in to HR and as for comparisons. There are some great sites out there, though, that give some basic info about what kind of wages to expect for various fields.
And yes, I agree that some of these men vs. women surveys can give very skewed results because they don't take some of the more obvious things into consideration. This one, however, did try to compare apples to apples with career fields.
Cost of living is a big one, though. I don't know if that's considered in the survey, but I made $30 an hour at my last job on the East Coast and that wasn't really much, and I make substantially less than that now that I'm in the Midwest. But I'm paying 1/2 as much for groceries and rent now too!
As a resource manager for a small company I found your article an interesting chocie for this website. What people don't realize is that often times our hands are tied when it comes to salaries and hiring procedures. There are many government regulations that cover all different types of occupations. My recommendation is that before you interview with a potential company, you should research what other people are getting paid in your area and the company's employment history. Look for high turn over rates, cost of living for your area and compare what you are looking for with what you can realistically expect. This I believe will have you better prepared for salary discussions.
Thank you for providing such great articles! As a professional woman, I would encourage women of all ages to create goals for themselves and go for it! Whether you are a mom (which is a job within itself!) or a woman who dreams of the corporate office, do what makes you happy and speak up for what you want. To quote Dolly Parton, "You have to honk your horn so people know you are coming!"
Is Hillary going to accept getting less pay than Bill did if she gets in the White House? I think not. And the rest of us shouldn't accept less pay than men either.
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