Gender Wage Gaps Remain Wide in Year Two of the Pandemic

In 2021, women earned just 83.1 percent of what men earned, based on IWPR’s analysis of median weekly earnings for full-time workers. When women and men working both part- and full-time are included, women made only 77.3 cents for every dollar a man made in 2021.

Wage gaps across gender, race, and ethnicity in 2021 were profound. Compared to the median weekly earnings of White men working full-time, Hispanic women’s full-time earnings were just 58.4 percent, Black women’s 63.1 percent, and White women’s 79.6 percent.

The wage gap widened slightly for women of color. While the wage gap narrowed for all women compared to all men, the wage gap widened for Asian, Black, and Hispanic women compared to White men, and stayed the same for White women.

Occupational segregation contributes strongly to gender and racial wage gaps. Almost one in four Hispanic women and more than one in five Black women work in services, the broad occupation group with the lowest earnings, compared to just slightly over one in ten White women, and one in 11 White men.

Women earn less than men in almost all occupations. Women’s full-time earnings are less than men’s in almost all of the top 20 most common occupations for women and all of the top 20 most common occupations for men.