Although women have surpassed men in educational attainment, they still earn 81 cents for every dollar earned by men, according to a new study from researchers at Georgetown University.
Released on Tuesday, the Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce’s report — “Women Can’t Win: Despite Making Educational Gains and Pursuing High-Wage Majors, Women Still Earn Less than Men” – indicates that women must hold one more degree than men to achieve pay parity. Combining factors leading to pay inequity include gender discrimination and women’s historical concentration in lower-paying majors and occupations.
“Women’s earnings still lag their exceptional educational progress,” said Dr. Anthony P. Carnevale, the lead author of the report and director of the Georgetown Center. “At the heart of the gender wage gap is discrimination in pay for the same sets of qualifications and experience.”
Researchers at the Georgetown Center noted in the report that when comparing women and men with equal education and the same college majors working in the same occupation, women still made only 92 cents for every dollar earned by men.
Further, women need “ideally at least a bachelor’s degree” to make family-sustaining wages while a “small share of men” can make it with just a high school diploma, according to the report.
Other findings show that socially and culturally reinforced “sex-segregated” interests that factor into what college majors and occupational choices women make. Women are highly concentrated in the lowest-earning majors – 76 percent of all education majors and 72 percent of psychology majors, for example.
Due to the wage gap, more women than ever are enrolling in college and pursuing higher-paying majors in STEM and business fields. Three million more women are enrolled in postsecondary education than men, the report said.
