MAKING SENSE OF THE GENDER PAY GAP
April 2 was Equal Pay Day, a date not by happenstance but because it’s the actual date, according to pay-equity.org, that denotes "how far into the year women must work to earn what men earned in the previous year." Yikes.
And this is for white women only. Women of color have to wait until November! The gender pay gap remains hotly contested because it’s multi-faceted, complex and hard to pin to one reason. While those reasons are often contested many are statistically verified and the phenomenon is real. The gap exists.
Is it because women begin to “lean out” or leave the workforce before and after having children? Because they’re less likely than men to self-promote and climb corporate ladders? Because they often self-select in female-centered industries and thus perpetuate an embedded cycle of lower pay? I found this Forbes article quite interesting as it breaks down the pay gap debate in five, data-rich graphs as well as offers concrete suggestions for employers to think about in order to mind the gap.