by Valerie Norton, Public Policy Fellow,
National Women's Law Center

Catherine Rampell's recent post on NYTimes.com’s Economix Blog discusses the smaller wage gap that exists between younger women and their male counterparts, pointing out that the gap in pay generally widens with age. Here at NWLC, this isn’t really news to us, and Rampell herself includes a chart that shows how over the last 30 years older women have almost always had a larger gap in pay.

Moving beyond Rampell's analysis of median weekly earnings and looking at median annual earnings data (NWLC's preferred source because it includes workers who have earnings at least 50 weeks out of the year), we find that women aged 15 to 24 working full-time, year-round earn just 87 percent of what their male counterparts earn. By the time they reach the critical years leading up to retirement, that 13 percent pay gap has more than doubled: women aged 45 to 64 who work full-time, year-round earn only 73 percent of what men do. 

So what happens that shifts older women to a different pay track and widens the pay gap? Rampell speculates that older women are more likely to have dropped out of the labor force to have children, which takes a toll on an employee's potential for increased earnings and promotions. Indeed, differences in men's and women's career paths and family choices affect their earnings and career trajectories. However, many credible studies have shown that some significant portion of the gap remains unexplainable. Even after controlling for demographic factors, family attributes, work patterns, and occupational segregation, some of the wage gap remains due to an individual's sex. While discrimination cannot be measured directly, the very existence of pay inequities between younger women and their male counterparts when they begin their careers—at time when women are not likely to have taken any time out of the workforce—illustrates the potential for differences in pay as a result of sex discrimination. 

Rampell's piece suggests that younger women enjoy "pay parity" and that while discrimination may exist today, it is for the most part an arcane practice of the past; and that younger women needn't worry about the discrimination experienced by older women because, after all, younger women earn around 90 percent of what their male counterparts earn. Personally, I’m not satisfied with a 10 percent difference in pay (at best), nor can I ignore the numerous cases and reports that confirm prevalent pay discrimination. That's why NWLC continues to call for passage of the Paycheck Fairness Act, which will provide the tools that workers and enforcement agencies need to address pay discrimination. It's time for Congress to get it done.

• Tags:
• Employment
• fair pay
• Valerie Norton

View Original Post at womenstake.org