Whilst Serenity in Leadership has provided a summary of key findings from this report below, the full paper ‘The Gender Wage Gap: 2018 Earnings Differences by Race and Ethnicity’ is available at https://iwpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/C478_Gender-Wage-Gap-in-2018.pdf
There are multiple metrics for the wage gap; this report makes reference to:
1. Ratio of women’s and men’s median annual earnings for full-time, year-round workers (a annual earnings ratio of 80.5% - as observed in 2017 - places the wage gap at 19.5%)
2. Ratio of women’s and men’s median weekly full-time earnings (a weekly earnings ratio of 81.1% - as observed in 2017 – places the wage gap at 18.9%)
- When wage gap research expands to include part-time employees, results narrow (women are likelier than men to do part-time work to accommodate childcare or other caregiving work)
- The weekly gender earnings ratio has risen from levels of 62.4% (seen in 1979) to the 81.1% reported here; however, the point change in this has declined decade by decade meaning progress in closing the gender earnings pay gap has slowed considerably.
- Women of all major racial and ethnic groups earn less than their male counterparts in the same group.
- Hispanic workers receive lower weekly earnings than their White, Black and Asian counterparts – Hispanic women earn 61.6% of white men’s median weekly earnings, for example (true of 2018). Black women earn 65.3% of white men’s median weekly earnings whereas Asian women narrow this gap, earning 93.5% of white men’s median weekly earnings.
- This report reiterates the economic benefits that are possible when earning inequalities are targeted; this work estimates raised earnings could equate to a 2.8% increase in GDP.
