PEW RESEARCH: Gender Pay Gap has not Changed 20 years

The gender pay gap in the US has not changed much in the past two decades, with women earning 82% of what men earned in 2022, according to a recent study by the Pew Research Center. The study found that the wage gap was smaller for workers aged 25 to 34, with women earning 92 cents for every dollar earned by a man in the same age group. The gap among all workers in 2022 was 18 cents, down from 35 cents in 1982.

The gender pay gap has been explained by education, occupational segregation and work experience, but women are still overrepresented in lower-paying occupations relative to their share of the workforce.

A Pew Research survey conducted in October 2022 found that 50% of US adults believed that women being treated differently by employers was a major reason for the gap. Other factors included women making different choices about how to balance work and family (42%) and working in jobs that pay less (34%). Women were more likely than men (61% vs 37%) to say a major reason for the gap was employers treating women differently, and parents with children under 18 were more likely than those without young children to say a major reason was the choices women make about balancing work and family (48% vs. 40%).

Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents (68%)were more likely to say a major factor behind wage differences was employers treating women differently than Republicans and those who lean Republican (30%). Republicans were more likely to say that women’s choices about how to balance work and family (50% vs 36%) and their tendency to work in jobs that are less lucrative are the main reasons why they don’t earn as much as men (39% vs 30%). Women were more likely to feel a great deal of pressure to focus on responsibilities at home than men (48% vs 35%).

A quarter of employed US adults claim to be a boss or one of the top managers where they work, while 33% aspire to be in the future, and 41% neither aspire to be nor are presently bosses or top managers.

In the workplace, men are more likely than women to hold top managerial positions. Employed fathers are the most likely group to claim to be bosses or top managers, and this reflects differences in marital status and education. In addition to being less likely than men to be bosses or top managers, women are also less likely to want to hold these positions in the future. Over four in ten employed women (46%) do not want to be bosses or top managers, compared to 37% of men. The number of men (35%) and women (31%) who say they would like to be boss one day is similar. Similar patterns were found with working parents.