Data Show Gender Pay Gap Opens Early
The gender pay gap has been a longstanding issue in the corporate world. However, this article described how the issue starts early — even just a couple years after graduation from college. As soon as women enter the workforce, their earnings are often eclipsed by those of their male counterparts who have very similar credentials or jobs. The curious aspect that I found, though, is that this issue likely does not exist solely because of discrimination in the workplace against women, but instead because of possible behavioral differences between genders. For example, the article mentions how women are less prone to be aggressive in negotiating salaries with their employers as opposed to men. Women also sometimes chase jobs that might provide a lesser salary because they are more driven by a mission or passion that the job exemplifies rather than looking for the highest paying job.
A year ago, I worked with a small group of students and a research analyst to research the gender pay gap, and we not only analyzed how gender affected pay, but also how other factors like race and education exacerbate the gap. I find the research presented in this article interesting, though, because in my research we did not pay as much attention to how early the gap formed, which is important to inform how we can develop policy to mitigate this problem.
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