Report: Global Gender Income Gap Widens, Expected to Take 257 Years to Close
Release Time:
2019-12-18 17:32
Source:
www.dongqiudi.com
According to The Wall Street Journal, the gender income gap in the United States continued to widen in the third quarter of 2015.
According to a latest report from the World Economic Forum, the global gender income gap further widened in 2019, and it is now estimated that it will take 257 years to close this gap, which is more than half a century longer than the 202 years estimated by the forum in 2018.
The latest data released by the U.S. Department of Labor on October 20 shows that in the third quarter of 2015, the median weekly earnings of full-time male employees rose by 2.2% compared to a year earlier, reaching $899. Meanwhile, the median weekly earnings of full-time female employees were $721, an increase of only 0.8% compared to the previous year. This means that during the period from July to September this year, for every dollar earned by a male employee, a female employee earned only 81.1 cents.
For three consecutive quarters, the income growth rate of male employees has been at least twice that of female employees.
In the second quarter of 2014, the median weekly earnings of full-time female employees were equivalent to 83.5% of those of full-time male employees, marking the smallest gender income gap since 1979. Until this year, the gender income gap had been narrowing, but this was largely due to weak male income—male income declined in five quarters between 2010 and 2014—rather than a significant increase in female income.
Image source: The Wall Street Journal. It is not new that male income is higher than female income. Politicians and celebrities who have long advocated for gender equality have also been tirelessly calling for attention to this issue. Income equality is one of the social issues the Obama administration has been committed to promoting. Actress Patricia Arquette said in her Best Supporting Actress acceptance speech at this year's Oscars, "It's time for the women of the United States to have equal pay rights." Recently, Jennifer Lawrence, a post-90s actress who rose to fame with the movie Hunger Games, also wrote an article titled "Why Do I Make Less Than My Male Co-Stars?" criticizing the gender income inequality in Hollywood.
Why does gender income inequality occur? Many people attribute it to women being more engaged in low-paying jobs, but data from the Department of Labor tells us a fact that may surprise many: the increasing income gap is at least partly caused by income inequality among high earners (such as lawyers, engineers, doctors, and finance professionals).
Among full-time employees with high-paying jobs, the median weekly earnings of male employees in the third quarter of 2015 were $1,345, an increase of 7.4% compared to the previous year, while the median weekly earnings of female employees were $970, an increase of only 2.2% compared to the previous year.
"People mistakenly believe that women just have bad jobs. If we put women in good jobs, we can solve the gender income gap problem," said Claudia Goldin, a labor economist with a PhD from Harvard University, in an interview with The New York Times.
Goldin pointed out that placing women in high-paying industries can only reduce the overall employee income gap by 15%, while for employees with a college degree, the gap would reduce by 30% to 35%. The remaining factors lie within the workplace itself.
According to Goldin's research, the income gap between female and male financial experts is the largest, with the former earning only 66% of the latter's salary. Other professions with the largest gender income gaps include podiatrists (67%), doctors and surgeons (71%), financial advisors (73%), and accountants (76%).
Ranking of high-income professions with the largest gender income gaps. Image source: The New York Times. Goldin believes that the reason for gender income inequality in these professions is that employers tend to reward employees who work longer hours and spend more time in the office, and these employees are often men.
"If companies no longer disproportionately reward employees who work long hours and fixed schedules, the gender income gap would greatly reduce or even disappear entirely," Goldin wrote in The American Economic Review.
Data shows that professions encouraging employees to spend long hours in the office (such as business, law, and medicine) indeed have the largest gender income gaps. A lawyer at a large firm working 80 hours a week earns twice the salary of a legal advisor at a small company working 40 hours a week.
For female employees who need to take care of family and children, they often prefer flexible working hours to balance work and life, which prevents them from "working hard" like male employees. If the culture of encouraging overtime does not change, the gender income gap will only widen.
In China, the issue of widening gender income gaps also deserves attention. According to three national surveys by the National Bureau of Statistics, economic inequality between men and women has worsened over the past 20 years.
The surveys show that in 1990, the annual income of female urban residents was equivalent to 77.5% of that of male urban residents. This figure has continuously declined, reaching 70% in 1999 and 67.3% in 2010.
The gender income inequality in rural areas is even more severe. In 1999, the annual income of female rural residents was equivalent to 79% of that of male rural residents, but by 2010 this figure had dropped to 56%.
However, the report does record some positive developments: the global gender gap—including areas beyond economics such as health, education, and politics—has improved, largely due to an increase in women's political participation. Nevertheless, the forum estimates that it will take nearly 100 years to completely eliminate the gender gap.
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