Whoa, I got a guest post! The awesome Holly Whitman came to me with some pitches like I'm some kind of professional, which was weird, but I encourage any other readers to do the same! The articles don't even have to look this nice. Anyway, here's a bunch of cool, well-researched information on the gender pay gap. After reading, visit her blog, onlyslightlybiased.com.
Thanks to the increasing popularity of progressive and populist ideals in the United States, pay equity for women has become a central issue in our ongoing presidential election. It’s an issue that we’re going to hear trumpeted by the likes of Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton in the coming months, while Republicans will continue to sweep it under the rug – along with the outpouring of public support for a higher minimum wage.
Thanks to the increasing popularity of progressive and populist ideals in the United States, pay equity for women has become a central issue in our ongoing presidential election. It’s an issue that we’re going to hear trumpeted by the likes of Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton in the coming months, while Republicans will continue to sweep it under the rug – along with the outpouring of public support for a higher minimum wage.
The
thing is, while the United States has an undeniable tendency to pay
women less than men for equal work – one
estimate is 82.5 percent, though others skew
closer to the 72 percent mark – some industries are simply
better than others when it comes to pay equity. We’re going to take
a look at both groups and see if we can’t come to some conclusion
about the direction in which things are headed.

Where
is this problem the worst? One industry we can point to is food
service.
According
to landmark research from
David Neumark, women are casually and regularly discriminated
against by upscale restaurants. Female applicants, he found, are much
less likely to receive a call back with an offer for employment than
their male counterparts.
Another
unlikely bastion of sexism is the world of professional musicians.
When auditioning for a seat in a symphony orchestra, women who
audition behind a screen are much
more likely to advance in the selection process than women who
audition without a screen. Equality, much like justice, would appear
to be blind.
For
a more comprehensive look at industries with the worst track records
on pay equity, we can turn to the ever-reliable Bureau
of Labor Statistics. Here is a brief overview of the worst
offenders:
- Real estate brokers and sales agents: 73.3 percent wage gap
- Production workers: 72.8 percent wage gap
- Recreation/fitness workers: 72.8 percent wage gap
- Human resources workers: 72.6 percent wage gap
- Bartenders: 72.4 percent wage gap
The
list goes on, to the point where we have no choice but to face this
phenomenon head-on and make a concerted effort to turn it around. Of
course, the deck has always been stacked against women, and it
doesn’t always take the form of outright discrimination.
In
fast-paced industries, it’s quite common for employers to actively
reward employees who spend long hours in the office. By definition,
this is a discriminatory act against women, many of whom have
familial responsibilities waiting for them at home. These
responsibilities – cooking, cleaning, parenting – have been
cemented in place by traditional and societal inertia. In other
words, a single male is much more likely to avail himself of overtime
and be rewarded for his commitment in the form of raises and company
advancement than is a married woman with two children waiting for her
back home.
The
Best Industries for Pay Equity
It’s
not all bad news, though.
Silicon
Valley is becoming an unlikely champion of both pay equity and gender
neutrality in the world today. This is thanks to companies like
Apple, Google and Facebook getting more serious about including women
in the decision-making process and providing female-centric
health services, like egg-freezing, and health plans that provide
birth control as a matter of course. It’s nice to see an industry
that lives on the cutting edge of both technology and social justice.
If
you’re a woman and you’re reading this right now to narrow down
your potential career choices, it makes a lot of sense to seek out
employment in the technology, Web development and scientific fields.
It cannot be an accident that the most forward-thinking fields are
also among the most egalitarian.
However,
if the so-called STEM fields – science, technology, engineering and
mathematics – are not quite what you’re looking for, another
roundup of best
professions for women might help. Sales engineers,
anesthesiologists, chief executives, upholsterers and construction
workers all appear to be careers for which women can expect pay
equity, or at least something approaching pay equity.
Where
Hope Resides
If
everything you read above has you feeling depressed, know two things:
1) You’re not alone, and 2) There’s still hope. It comes to us
from America’s more progressive small businesses.
Corporate
culture might be beholden to ancient economic models by stubbornness,
tradition and inertia, but small businesses across the country are
making meaningful contributions to this debate by enshrining pay
equity and other expressions of fairness in their company
policies and culture. It’s an encouraging trend, and one that will
only grow more widespread as populism takes hold in this country.
What
you’ve just read might feel like a mixed bag of hope and stalled
progress, but you’d be right to come away feeling largely
optimistic. Public awareness of this issue has never been more
widespread than it is at this moment in our development, and that
means a society-wide consensus on the value of women cannot be far
behind.
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