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Do Men Really Earn More Than Women?

Topics: Current Events

Eighty cents on the dollar – that is the gender pay gap figure often quoted these days. It seems incredible that, in our modern world, such inequity in pay for male and female workers can exist. PayScale wanted to find out more about this figure and what we discovered is that "80 cents on the dollar" isn't accurate in most cases.

In our new infographic "Do Men Really Make More Than Women?" we show that when working the same job, with similar skills, knowledge and abilities, men and women's pay rarely differs by more than five percent, with men typically earning more. There is still work to do to even out pay between the sexes but is isn't, perhaps, as severe of a problem as thought.

Job Choice and Family Responsibilities

What we found is that job choice and family responsibilities heavily impact pay differences between men and women. Women tend to choose lower-paying jobs that will not, no matter how hard they work, pay as much as the jobs men typically choose.

Do You Know What You're Worth?

Also, we noticed that women's pay growth stops out-pacing men's around age 30 which, for college educated women, is the age at which they typically start a family. 

Therefore, the push to get women into typically male-dominate fields, as well as making it easier for men to take on domestic responsibilities (flexible schedules and paid paternity leave) might best help even out men's and women's salaries. What are your thoughts?

View the infographic or read the methodology behind PayScale's study of the gender pay gap.

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Gender Infographic 625


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