Gender Pay Gap: The Numbers Game

In this post I will be responding to a book from the UB Library named “The Gender Pay Gap: Understanding the Numbers”. This book focuses on the numbers behind the gender pay gap. They describe the gender pay gap as, “the ratio of female-to-male earnings or as the gap of how much less women are earning compared to men.” They then stated that the female-to-male earnings ratio was 81.6% which means there was a gap of 18.4%. I like how this book included a diagram of the equation that is used to calculate the ratio. It divides the women’s earnings by the men’s earnings, and then multiply by 100. Seeing the equation behind it has helped me understand exactly the way that this percentage is calculated. This book goes into the history of the female-to-male earnings ratio. It states that the (F/M) earnings ratio was 59% in 1961. This shows that the pay gap was once way worse than it is now. It is hard to believe that 60 years ago men earned almost double the amount that women earned. There has clearly been an increase in this percentage over the last 50–60 years as the number is up above 85 percent today, but there is still some work left to do. Female earnings have been growing at a faster rate than males over the last 40 years which has greatly helped close the gap between the two. The book stated, “The female-to-male earnings ratio is affected by how fast earnings grow for both men and women. If females’ earnings grow at a faster rate than males’ earnings, then the female to male earnings ratio will rise, which narrows the gender pay gap and vice versa.” This helps show how the pay gap has been brought tighter over the last few decades by female earnings increasing at a faster rate than males. The book also shows that younger women have a lower gap than older women. Women ages 16–24 have a gap of less than 10 percent while women ages 55–64 have a pay gap around 25 percent. I believe that this has happened because the starting salaries for females has increased in the recent years. The closing of the pay gap definitely benefits younger women the most because it all starts at the bottom where the entry level positions are. Increasing the wages of those positions help set up these young women to earn higher wages throughout their whole career.

Buhler, P. M., & Abdel-Raouf, F. (n.d.). The Gender Pay Gap; Understanding the Numbers. Taylor and Francis.