Women and Pay

Wow, this report comes out with guns blazing, and it should:

I urge you, today, to ask at your place of employment.

In every field, at every level of education, men earn more than women. That’s the grim takeaway of this new report [PDF] from the U.S. Census Bureau, which assesses the value of a higher education in the United States—and illustrates the persistent pay gap between male and female employees who hold comparable degrees. In short, education is valuable, but it’s most lucrative if you’re male.

Among Americans with some form of post-high school education—a vocational, associate’s, bachelor’s, or advanced degree—men make more than $800 above women’s pay every month. And the gap widens as men and women climb educational ranks. Men with bachelor’s degrees in business make $1,000 more each month than their female classmates; among men and women with advanced degrees in business, the gap widens to $1,400 a month. In the natural sciences—the only sector in which men and women earned fairly equal pay at the associate’s and bachelor’s degree levels—the equity was erased among advanced degree holders. Men with advanced degrees in the natural sciences make about $2,600 more per month than their female peers (couldn’t you use an extra $31,200 a year?). Even in sectors traditionally regarded as feminine—education and liberal arts, for example—male earners outstripped female ones.