Is the Gender Pay Gap Closing?

Great employers about creating an equitable workplace where men and women are paid equally for the same work. At SelectOne, we help companies recruit the best talent in the nation, and one of the important conversations we have with many of our clients has to do with pay equity. Whenever a conversation arises about the gender pay gap, people want to know: is the pay gap closing?

History of the Gender Pay Gap

The pay gap is the difference between what men and women are paid in the United States, and right now it hovers around 80%. This means that for every dollar earned by a man in America, the average woman earns only 80 cents.

On the one hand, the pay gap is closing! This is great news. The progress has been slow, but women’s work is being valued a little bit more and a little bit more each year. This improvement started in 1964, when the first legal protections were placed to regulate employment discrimination based on sex.

The Equal Pay Act of 1963 actually went into effect in 1964, and when it passed, employers could no longer pay men and women differently based solely on their sex. This important legislation was an important step in the right direction, especially because at the time, the gender pay gap placed women’s wages at barely over half of what men made in an hour.

Since the 1960s, additional landmark legal cases have added extra protections to the workplace. Employers can’t make hiring decisions based on sex, and they can’t change job descriptions for positions that women or men hold within the company in order to pay women less. Positions can’t be advertised as being fillable only by men or women, either. Companies can’t fire women for being pregnant or choose not to hire them because they may be or become pregnant.

These protections are a large part of why the gender pay gap has slowly been narrowing over time.

The Future of the Gender Pay Gap

What does the future hold for the pay gap?

If it continues to close at its current pace, men and women won’t attain pay equity until 2059. Because the pay gap is even larger when you analyze women’s pay based on along lines of race and ethnicity, 2059 is not going to be a magical year when everything is all better. That’s because in order for African American women to earn the same as white men, they will have to wait until the year 2119, assuming the current pace continues. Latinx women are even more disadvantaged when it comes to the pay gap, and their average pay rate won’t equal that of men until 2224. That’s more than 200 years away!

Clearly, this slow pace of change is not acceptable, and many employers and employees alike want to know what can be done to advance the speed at which the pay gap is closing.

What Can You Do?

As an employer or manager, you are in the privileged position to create change within your own company, and within your industry. Check out our informative online resource, the Employer's Guide to Pay Gaps and Gender Equity, where we explore the gender pay gap, why it exists, and what you can do to combat it! In addition to completing an internal audit of your company’s hiring and pay practices when it comes to gender equity, you can also examine your company policies that could be unintentionally leading to a pay gap among your employees.

And we’re here to help! We are happy to walk you through the legal implications of gender equity, as well as the ways that great policies can improve your ability to recruit and retain the top talent in the country. Contact us today to talk about your options!