In Business / May 2007
Catching Up by Degrees
Women have made remarkable strides in education during the past three decades, but they haven’t translated into full pay equity yet, even for college-educated women who work full time. A typical college-educated woman working full time earns $46,000 a year compared to $62,000 for college-educated male workers, a difference of $16,000.
The disparity kicks in right away. New research released in April by the American Association of University Women Educational Foundation shows that just one year out of college, women working full time already earn less than their male colleagues, even when they work in the same field. Ten years after graduation, the pay gap widens.
The average median income of college educated women in West Virginia from 2003-2005 was $41,679, a little less than the national average, more than Kentucky, about the same as Tennessee and Vermont. But West Virginia does maintain the smallest earnings gap in the country between college educated men and women who work year round, full time. The average income for college educated men is $46,573. West Virginia women make 89 percent of what their male counterparts earn, close to the percentage of other professional women from the east coast and California, though actual coastal incomes are higher.
Unfortunately, only 16 per cent of women in the state have a college degree. West Virginia was ranked 51st in the nation for its proportion of college educated women. (Only 16 percent of WV men have a college degree, also the lowest percentage in the US.)
In the report, Behind the Pay Gap, the AAUW Educational Foundation found that just one year after college graduation, women earn only 80 percent of what their male counterparts earn. Catherine Hill, AAUW Director of Research, says, “By looking at earnings just one year out of college, you have as level a playing field as possible. These employees don’t have a lot of experience and, for the most part, don’t have care-giving obligations, so you’d expect there to be very little difference in the wages of men and women. But surprisingly, and unfortunately, we find that women already earn less-even when they have the same major and occupation as their male counterparts.”
Ten years after graduation, women fall further behind, earning only 69 percent of what men earn. Even after controlling for hours, occupation, parenthood, and other factors known to affect earnings, the research indicates that one-quarter of the pay gap remains unexplained and is likely due to sex discrimination. Over time, the unexplained portion of the pay gap grows.
“The persistence of the pay gap among young, college-educated, full-time workers suggests that educational achievement alone will not close the pay gap,” Hill said. “We need to make workplaces more family-friendly, reduce sex segregation in education and in the workplace, and combat discrimination that continues to hold women back in the workplace.”
The AAUW research indicated that the pay gap exists despite how women outperform men in school–earning slightly higher GPAs than men in every college major, including science and mathematics and that ten years after graduation, college-educated men working full time have more authority in the workplace than their female counterparts. Men are more likely to be involved in hiring and firing, supervising others, and setting pay.
Women who attended highly selective colleges still earned less than men from either highly or moderately selective colleges and about the same as men from minimally selective colleges.
Men and women remain segregated by college major. Women make up 79 percent of education majors; 82 percent of engineering majors are men. In the workplace, women comprise 74 percent of the education field and men make up 84 percent of the engineering and architecture fields.
As AAUW Educational Foundation President Barbara O’Connor says, “The findings from Behind the Pay Gap are telling and disturbing. They show that equity remains an issue for women today.”
To see state-by-state data on pay equity, visit http://www.aauw.org.
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