Report: Gender pay gap pegged to lack of promotions

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The gender pay gap in the United States is real but more complicated than is often reported, according to new research by PayScale Inc.


What contributes to the gap? Lack of career advancement tends to keep women in lower-paying nonmanagement roles, and spending fewer hours on the job is also a contributing factor, the research suggests.


PayScale Inc., which provides compensation resources and software, looked at uncontrolled gender pay data (comparing working women and men generally) and found that, on average, women across the U.S. earned 76 cents on the dollar compared with men in 2016. That’s a 23.7 percent difference, down from last year’s 25.6 percent gap.


However, controlled data (comparing men and women with similar job type, education and experience, holding similar positions, etc.) show that women earn 98 cents on the dollar compared with men, or just 2.4 percent less, according to the firm’s 2016 Inside the Gender Pay Gap report


PayScale Inc. attributes the difference in controlled and uncontrolled data to the fact jobs and industries with higher pay are often disproportionately filled with male workers. Even within a given industry, the gender pay gap increases as employees move up the corporate ladder and fewer women are found in management roles.


Bias is still seen as a factor holding women back, according to many of the study’s female respondents. The researchers found that nearly 20 percent of all women and 36 percent of those with MBA degrees felt their gender was a factor in missing a raise or promotion.


The other factor contributing to the gender pay gap is the number of hours worked by men and women. In the U.S. workforce, 47 percent of men say they work more than 40 hours per week, while 30 percent of women say the same. Both salaried and hourly workers were examined.


Read more on the study on the Society for Human Resource Management’s website.