by Tara O’Sullivan
Women live longer than men, so it’s fair to argue that they need more income to provide for their retirement. However, women get paid less than men for similar work. A lot of people quote the “80 cents to $1” number which has been the accepted measurement of the gender pay gap for years
Then there’s the recent study by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, which analyzed a longitudinal dataset showing total earnings over the most recent 15 years for all workers who worked in at least one year.
That data, the Institute said, showed that women workers faced an actual wage gap of 51 percent in the 2001-2015 time period. Its research also found the cost of taking time out of the labor force to be exorbitant for women. For those who took just one year off from work, the study said, annual earnings were 39 percent lower than those of women who worked all 15 years between 2001 and 2015.
