The US is having to face up to continuing pay differentials between men and women. A new survey shows that women working full-time earn dramatically less than men within a year of graduating. The gap is around 20% but greater for minority ethnic populations. Ten years after graduating women are only earning 69% of their graduating male peers and women tend to have less management authority in the workplace.

Part of the difference can be attributed to gender differences in field of college education and career choice with women more likely to enter caring or social based fields such as education and nursing and men more likely to enter “hard science” fields such as engineering. However, even accounting for factors like hours worked, occupations or parenthood, the gap persists.

“If a woman and a man make the same choices, will they receive the same pay?” the study asked. “The answer is no. AOL News

Even within a single field of employment, such as education, the pay gap existed:

In education, women earn 95 percent as much as their male colleagues earn, while in math, women earn 76 percent as much as men earn, the study showed. While in college, the study showed, women outperformed men academically, and their grade point averages were higher in every college major.ONS

However these figures have been disputed as too low by research by Payfinder.com which estimates the gap to be 24%.

More on the US situation can be found on the BloggingStocks site and on MSNBC.

Posted by Louise Livesey on 24 April 2007, at 11:57 AM