Women earn only 77 cents to every dollar a man earns and are subject to other forms of discrimination in the workplace.
Why Is There A Wage Gap?
The wage gap is the result of a variety of forms of sex discrimination in the workplace, including discrimination in hiring, promotion and pay, sexual harassment, occupational segregation, bias against mothers and other ways in which women workers and women's work are undervalued.
Hiring, Promotion, Pay
First comes what most people think of as sex discrimination: the simple and straightforward refusal to hire, promote or fairly pay women who are just as qualified as men.
Sexual Harassment
Few people realize that sexual harassment also constitutes wage discrimination. After long and repeated sexual harassment, women leave or lose their jobs, potential raises, promotions, opportunities, emotional stability, ability to work and sometimes their lives.
Occupational Segregation
In 2000, two-thirds of all U.S. working women were still crowded into 21 of the 500 occupational categories. And women's work is consistently paid less than men's work. Are janitors really worth more than nurses' aides, parking lot attendants more than childcare workers, construction laborers more than bookkeepers and cashiers? According to American payrolls, they are.
Taxing Motherhood
Many people believe that the wage gap exists because women choose to care for children. But do they really choose to be paid less for doing the same work they did before giving birth? Forget the mommy track: too many women find themselves shunted unwillingly onto the mommy sidetrack. Frustrated women talk about how, once they came back from maternity leave, colleagues began to treat them as unreliable and unpromotable -- almost willfully overlooking any evidence of productivity.
Undervaluing Women Workers
Every day, women workers' suggestions are dismissed -- only to be discussed seriously when made by a man. Or when employers turn to old boy networks rather than public postings to recruit new talent. Or when interviews or screening tests prize male strengths or deeper voices, even though women's strengths and communication styles could accomplish the job just as well.
To find out more about the wage gap and what you can do to help close it for yourself or other women, please visit www.wageproject.org. | 
