Gender and Racial Wage Gaps Persist as the Economy Recovers

 

 

 

As a sign of the uneven recovery in 2021, gender wage gaps narrowed while median earnings fell marginally.

Research Highlights

• As the economy slowly recovered from the COVID-19 “She-cession” and women and men began to return to work in 2021, the gender wage gaps narrowed significantly for all workers with earnings. In 2021, the gender wage gap for all workers with earnings (including full-time, parttime, and part-year) was 23.1 percent (a gender earnings ratio 76.9 percent) compared to 27.1 percent in 2020 (a gender earnings ratio of 72.9 percent).
• The gender wage gap for full-time year-round workers also narrowed slightly during 2021 and continues to be smaller than the gender wage gap for all workers with earnings. In 2021, the gender wage gap for full-time year-round workers was 16.3 percent (a gender earnings ratio of 83.7 percent) compared with 16.9 percent in 2020 (a gender earnings ratio of 83.1 percent).
• Based on the historical rate of progress, it will take decades still for women workers to reach pay equity men. Full-time year-round women workers will need another 38 years, until 2059, and all women with earnings another 33 years, until 2054, years to reach pay equity with men.
• The gender wage gap translates into substantial earning losses for women. In 2021, the typical working woman earned $11,782 less per year than the typical man, and the typical woman working full-time year-round earned $9,954 less than the typical full-time year-round working man.
• Racial and gender wage gaps are profound. In 2021, the median annual earnings for Hispanic or Latina women working full-time year-round were just 57.1 percent of White men’s, and, at $39,511, would leave a parent with two children near-poverty, even after a full year of full-time work.
• The gender racial earnings gap is even wider for all women with earnings than for full-time yearround workers. For Latinas, the ratio for all workers with earnings falls to 53.6 percent; for Black women, the ratios were 63.7 compared with 67.2 percent; for White women, 73.3 compared with 79.9 percent, and for Asian women (not including Native Hawaiians or Pacific Islanders) 86.0 compared with 92.2 percent when compared with White men’s earnings.