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1 1 (June 1, 2016)

handle is hein.crs/govcdyr0001 and id is 1 raw text is: 01;0i E.$~ & June 1, 2016 The Gender Earnings Gap Women earn less, on average, than men. This earnings differential-often called the gender earnings gap-is a significant concern for policymakers, and it raises questions about gender equity in labor markets as well as the implications of the gap for national economic performance. Figure I. Ratio of Women's to Men's Median Annual Earnings, 1964-2014 Full-time, Year-Round Workers 100% Ratio of Median Annual Earnings 20% 1964 1974 1984 1994 2OW4 2014 Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Historical Income Tables, Table P-40, at http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/data/historical/people/ Note: A full-time, year-round worker is a person who worked 35 or more hours per week and 50 or more weeks during the previous calendar year. Figure 1 plots the ratio of women's to men's annual median earnings from 1964 to 2014, using U.S. Census Bureau data. This ratio is a summary measure of the gender earnings gap, which in practice takes on a range of values that vary across occupations and worker characteristics. Nonetheless, Figure 1 illustrates several points of interest: * Women's median annual earnings are lower than men's throughout the entire 1964-2014 period; * The ratio of women's-to-men's median annual earnings rose rapidly in the 1980s and 1990s; * The ratio continued to rise in recent years, but at a slower pace; * In 2014, women's median annual earnings were 78.6% of men's, representing a 21.4 percentage point gap. Part of the earnings gap shown in Figure 1 can be attributed to differences between men's and women's employment patterns and other characteristics. Table 1, for example, illustrates select differences between men's and women's years of education, full-time work experience, and occupations in 1981 and 2011. It shows that differences remain in 2011, but these have narrowed considerably since 1981. Table I. Select Worker Characteristics, by Sex Men Women Worker Characteristics 1981 2011 1981 2011 Schooling (Years) 13.3 14.3 13.2 14.5 Full-time Work Experience 20.3 17.8 13.5 16.4 (Years) Share of Workers in 21.5% 18.3% 9.2% 16.2% Managerial Jobs Share of Workers in 14.6% 18.6% 10.1% 17.8% Professional Jobs, Excluding Nurses and Teachers Source: Francine D. Blau and Lawrence M. Kahn, The Gender Wage Gap: Extent, Trends, and Explanations, National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper no. 21913, Tables 2 and 3, January 2016, http://www.nber.org/papers/w21913. Note: Blau and Kahn use data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, and restrict analysis to full-time non-farm wage and salary workers, aged 25-64, with at least 26 weeks of employment. Researchers have applied statistical techniques to large- scale survey data to separate the observed earnings gap (e.g., as shown in Figure 1) into its explained and unexplained portions. The explained portion accounts for observed gender differences in factors that affect wages (e.g., education, occupation, work experience), assuming that those attributes are equally valued for men and women (i.e., an MBA has the same value to an employer regardless of the degree-holder's sex). The unexplained portion is the gap that remains when observed characteristics are taken into account (i.e., it is the portion of the gap that cannot be explained by observed differences in education, work experience, or other worker characteristics). One interpretation of the unexplained gap is that it measures sex-based discrimination. Although research suggests discrimination is a component, the unexplained gap plausibly measures the impacts of many factors. This is because all surveys that have been used to estimate the explained and unexplained earnings gaps are limited in their capacity to fully capture worker attributes that could affect earnings. For example, although most surveys collect information on employment, occupation and industry of work, work hours, and wages, many individual characteristics (e.g., technical knowledge, competitiveness, interpersonal skills) and employer-specific attributes (e.g., job features and requirements, provision of classroom training and mentoring) are frequently unmeasured. As a .O 'T gognpo 'popmm ggmm 'S a X 11LULANJILiN,

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