RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK – Women’s lower wages are “anchors can weigh them down” and represent “occupational segregation,” Charmaine Davis of the US Department of Labor said Monday in a call for action to address the gender wage gap.

Her comments were shared in a live panel about Equal Pay Day for Women, which will be observed March 15. 

According to the National Committee on Pay Equity (NCPE), “This date symbolizes how far into the year women must work to earn what men earned in the previous year.” NCPE organized the first Equal Pay Day in 1996 as a public awareness event. 

“In 2020, a full-time, year-round working woman was paid 83%, on average, of what her male counterpart was paid,” said Davis. “And the gender wage gap is even more alarming for Black women and Latinas, who were paid 64% and 57%, respectively, of what non-Hispanic white men were paid in 2020.”

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A report on the national median earnings for Americans lists the average annual salary for men as $53,544, compared to $43,394 for women, setting the national wage gap at $10,150. The wage gap in North Carolina is slightly smaller, reported at $8,247, with male North Carolinians averaging $48,941 annually, and female North Carolinians averaging $40,694 annually.

Davis, who is the Southeast Regional Director of the U.S. Department of Labor’s Women’s Bureau, outlined three factors that perpetuate the gender wage gap:

Women’s Bureau report to show on how pandemic affected working women

On Tuesday, the Women’s Bureau will release a new report, “Bearing the Costs: How over-representation in under-valued jobs disadvantaged women during the pandemic.” The report will share data to illustrate how working women were impacted during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“In 2020, women saw more negative employment effects than men,” said Davis, “in part because women were overrepresented in occupations that experienced the greatest job losses.” 

The Women’s Bureau was established by Congress in 1920 to create standards and policies that improve opportunities and conditions for wage-earning women. Learn more at.dol.gov/agencies/wb.

  • Occupational segregation and the “devaluing” of work historically done by women
  • The use of a worker’s salary history to determine their present compensation
  • Penalties for women who take career breaks to be caregivers

Occupational segregation and “devaluing” work by women

“Occupational segregation is when women are concentrated in different occupations that tend to be lower-paying,” said Davis, “and they’re underrepresented in higher-paying occupations that, many times, are male-dominated.” 

Research shows that women and men are often “funneled” into jobs based on gender norms. 

According to Davis, about 42% of the gender wage gap can be attributed to occupational segregation. She also shared that occupational segregation cost Black women an estimated $39 billion and Hispanic women an estimated $46 billion in lower wages, compared to white men, in 2019.

“So-called women’s jobs, which are jobs that have historically had majority-female workforces, such as home health aides and child care workers, tend to offer lower pay and fewer benefits than so-called men’s jobs, which are jobs that have had predominantly male workforces, including jobs in trades such as building and construction,” writes Robin Bleiweis, Research Associate for Women’s Economic Security, in a fact sheet about the gender wage gap by The Center for American Progress. 

Davis commented on how her office is focused on improving conditions for women who work in traditionally female-dominated industries. 

“We don’t just want to continue to see those fields devalued, but we actually want to see them valued, offered better benefits offered the opportunity to organize and unionize and receive higher compensation,” said Davis. 

Gender bias may also affect how pay rates change when more women enter into traditionally male-dominated industries. 

“Women’s labor is so devalued that when women enter into an occupation in larger numbers, the wages go down,” said Davis. A 2008 study showed that all workers experience an earnings penalty when holding jobs in women-dominated occupations and that Black women face the largest penalty.

Since 2018, the Women’s Bureau and the Employment and Training Administration have administered a grant program to help women enter traditionally male-dominated industries. Last year, the Women in Apprenticeship and Nontraditional Occupations (WANTO) grant program awarded $3,349,936 to five community-based organizations.

Salary history and the gender pay gap

In her remarks, Davis suggested the importance of keeping salary history out of hiring discussions.

“Wages must be set for the work that people do, not the people who do the work,” said Davis.

Researchers at Boston University found that banning salary history benefitted employees, finding five percent higher salary offers for all and eight percent higher salary offers for women specifically. 

“If a worker is underpaid because her employer discriminates, then prospective employers bargaining over wages will make offers based on that discriminatory pay, rather than on her productivity,” the authors of the study wrote in a blog post for the Technology & Policy Research Initiative, a research initiative at The Boston University School of Law.  “This mechanism appears to perpetuate economic inequality.”

North Carolina and Equal Pay Day 

Last week, NC Governor Cooper proclaimed March 6 through March 12 as Women in Construction Week. In a press release about his proclamation, NC Department of Administration Secretary Pamela B. Cashwell commented on equal pay. 

“Equal pay continues to be a growing disparity among women in most industries,” said Cashwell. “While we are not quite there, women have made commendable strides in terms of equal pay in the construction industry. My hopes are for more women, especially college-bound girls, to take interest in careers such as architecture and engineering, continuing to break down barriers and improve opportunities for women in male-dominated fields.” 

The official Twitter account for Governor Cooper shared a tweet at the beginning of March that acknowledged Women’s History Month. 

“Gender disparities still exist in too many spaces, and we must ensure that women have access to equal opportunities, pay and respect for their contributions,” he wrote in the tweet.

A different study, led by researchers from the UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School and the UCLA Anderson School of Management, found that bans may actually result in lower wages for all, even if they address the wage gap. 

“We found that not having past salary information made employers more cautious in their offers to new hires, which brought wages down while having little effect on the gender wage gap for the employees we studied,” said author Jesse Davis, assistant professor of finance at UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School, in an article by the Kenan Institute.

During today’s event, Davis called on states and federal bills that focus on equal pay to address the use of salary history, saying that, “definitely banning the use of salary history benefits women.” 

Three years ago, on Equal Pay Day 2019, Governor Roy Cooper signed Executive Order No. 93, banning state government agencies from using salary history in the hiring process.

Wage penalties for women who take career breaks

The third factor that Davis addressed was carer breaks, specifically the gaps in employment that women may have if they took time off to care for their children or elderly relatives.

“Taking a career break to care for family, as so many women did during the pandemic, disrupts earnings,” said Davis. “And reentering the workforce after such a break often results in an earning penalty. Women should not be penalized for taking a career break to provide the necessary care for their family members.” 

She called on the federal and state governments to “work together” to reduce caregiver penalties. 

“We’re also working with stakeholders all across the country, providing them with research and data to help them with their efforts to expand access to quality and affordable childcare and to expand access to job-protected, paid leave,” said Davis. “Because again, when a woman is forced out of the labor force because she has caregiving responsibilities, that hurts her as far as her earning potential.”