Trends in Employment and Earnings
Women’s status in the area of employment and earnings has improved on two indicators since the publication of IWPR’s last national report on the status of women, the 2004 Status of Women in the States, and remained unchanged or declined on two others. Women’s median annual earnings for full-time, year-round work in 2013 ($39,157) were nearly identical to their earnings for similar work in 2002 ($39,108 when adjusted to 2013 dollars). The gender earnings ratio improved during this time from 76.6 to 78.3 percent, narrowing the gender wage gap by 1.7 percentage points, and the share of women working in professional or managerial occupations grew from 33.2 to 39.9 percent. Women’s labor force participation rate, however, declined from 59.6 in 2002 to 57.0 percent in 2014.
Weekly News Roundup – March 1 to 5, 2021
Activism on the Frontlines (03/04/21) When it comes to Myanmar’s [...]
Gender Wage Gap Shrinks in 2020 Due to Tremendous Job Losses for Lowest Paid – Racial and Ethnic Disparities Persist
Washington, DC – A new policy brief, The Weekly Gender Wage Gap by Race and Ethnicity: 2020 from the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR), provides the first data on COVID-19’s impact on the gender wage gap. It finds that the wage gap narrowed, but reasons for the change point to growing inequality instead of progress for women. Women’s average earnings increased more than men’s because lowest paid women were the most likely to lose jobs during the COVID-19 shecession – and are no longer counted in the average women’s weekly median earnings. As a result of the missing lowest-paid women, the gender wage gap narrowed, between all women and men, and between women and men by race and ethnicity.
The Weekly Gender Wage Gap by Race and Ethnicity: 2020
As lowest paid women lost most jobs, the gender wage gap for full-time workers shrank for all women and men, and by race & ethnicity. The gender wage gap in weekly earnings for full-time workers in the United States narrowed between 2019 and 2020, from 19.5 percent in 2019 (a gender earnings ratio of 81.5%) to 18.7 percent in 2020 (a gender earnings ratio of 82.3%)
