Join us for IWPR’s 2026 Power+ Summit, The Power Grid: Driving Gender Equity Forward, taking place September 28–29 in Detroit, MI.
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By Rhaina Cohen
The crux of this argument is correct. Occupational segregation persists , and the fields that women dominate tend to pay less. Indeed, in a recent study, the Cornell University economists Francine Blau and Lawrence Kahn examined data between 1980 and 2010 and found that the gender segregation in occupations and industries “are quantitatively the most important measurable factors explaining the gender wage gap.” Equal pay and gender segregation have consistently had a strong inverse relationship; the greater the gender segregation in the labor market, the larger the disparity between men’s and women’s wages has been . It’s no surprise, then, that the U.S. hasn’t seen an improvement on either front since the 1980s.