Gender gap, 2011

The good people at the Institute for Women’s Policy Research have a new brief report on the gender gap in pay, based on 2011 data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The gender pay gap reflects both the tendency of women to work in lower-paid occupations, and the tendency of men to earn more than women within occupations. IWPR calculated women’s median weekly earnings as a percentage of men’s, for those working full-time only, for the 20 most common occupations among men and women. Here is my figure from their results, with occupations listed from most to least female-dominated. It shows the extent of segregation in major occupations, and the nearly-universal gender pay gap within them, regardless of gender composition:

A few occupations were on both lists, and some had two few women or men to calculate relative wages, so only 30 are shown here.

Men’s earnings are higher in all but one of these occupations (stock clerks), though the gaps are larger on average in the more-male occupations.*

This report follows a recent appearance by IWPR’s president, Heidi Hartmann, on the Rachel Maddow show. Hartmann has posted this review of their discussion about the gender pay gap.

Recent related posts:

• What if women were in charge?
• Gender integration’s lost decade
• What it’s all worth, in work-life cash
• Gender gaps by education and age

* This is the opposite of the pattern Matt Huffman and I found in our 2003 paper, where the gender gap was greater in female-dominated jobs (with statistical controls and 1990 data). Something to look into.