Page 337 - Essencials of Sociology

310 CHAPTER 10 Gender and Age

FIGURE 10.7 The Gender Pay Gap, by Education 1

$100,000
Men $91,600
$90,000 Women

$80,000

$70,000
$62,500 $62,600
Earnings per year $50,000 $45,300 $44,300 $52,200 $54,500 $42,000
$60,000

$40,000
$30,000 $33,500 $32,100 $36,400
$23,500
$20,000

$10,000
72% 70% 72% 70% 77% 68%
0
Average of High School High School Some College, Associate’s College
All Workers Dropouts Graduates No Degree Degree Graduates 2
1
Full-time workers in all fields. Dollars rounded to the nearest hundred. The percentage at the bottom of each purple bar indicates the women’s average percent-
age of the men’s income.
2
Bachelor’s and all higher degrees, including professional degrees.
Source: By the author. Based on Statistical Abstract of the United States 2013:Table 717.

The pay gap is so great that U.S. women who work full time average only 72 percent
of what men are paid. As you can see from Figure 10.8 on the next page, the pay gap
used to be even worse. And it isn’t just the United States. A gender gap in pay occurs in
all industrialized nations.
As the glass ceiling slowly cracks,
women are gaining entry into the Reasons for the Gender Pay Gap. What logic can underlie the gender pay gap?
top positions of society. Shown here As we just saw, college degrees are gender linked, so perhaps this gap is due to career
is Marissa Mayer, CEO of Yahoo! as choices. Maybe women are more likely to choose lower-paying jobs, such as teaching
she announces Yahoo’s purchase of
Tumblr. grade school, while men are more likely to go into better-paying
fields, such as business and engineering. Actually, this is true, and
researchers have found that about half of the gender pay gap is
due to such factors. And the balance? It consists of a combination
of gender discrimination (Jacobs 2003; Roth 2003) and what is
called the “child penalty”—women missing out on work experi-
ence and opportunities while they care for children (Hundley
2001; Wilde et al. 2010).
Another reason has also become apparent. Let’s look at this in
the Down-to-Earth Sociology box on page 312.
The CEO Gap. As a final indication of the extent of the gap in
gender pay (and power), consider this. Of the nation’s top 500
corporations (the so-called Fortune 500), only 18 are headed by
women (Bosker 2012). This low number is a large improvement!
Just seven women were CEOs of these companies in 2003.
I examined the names of the CEOs of the 350 largest U.S. cor-
porations, and I found that your best chance to reach the top is to
be named (in this order) John, Robert, James, William, or Charles.
Edward, Lawrence, and Richard are also advantageous names.