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Women proceed to make great strides in the workforce, reaching increasing levels of education, and advancing into senior leadership positions. However, the gender pay gap — the distinction between the earnings of women and men — has barely budged in latest years.
In the U.S., ladies who work full time are usually paid about 80 cents for each greenback paid to their male counterparts, almost the identical disparity that existed twenty years earlier.
There isn’t any single clarification for why progress towards narrowing the pay gap has stalled, based on a latest report by the Pew Research Center, though ladies are nonetheless extra more likely to pursue careers in lower-paying industries and take outing of the labor pressure or cut back the variety of hours labored due to caretaking responsibilities — also known as the “motherhood penalty.” Systemic bias has additionally performed a task.
In Boston, nevertheless, change is occurring regardless of these headwinds.
New analysis reveals the gender wage gap decreased by 30% over the final two years, based on the Boston Women’s Workforce Council, which was shaped a decade in the past in partnership with the Boston mayor’s workplace to handle this problem.
To be certain, in Boston, ladies nonetheless solely earn 79 cents for each greenback a person earns. However, that marks a 9-cent enchancment from the gap reported by the group in 2021.
“This is the first time we’ve seen a real decrease,” stated Kimberly Borman, government director of the Boston Women’s Workforce Council.
Two components have helped transfer the needle, based on the council: Salaries for ladies general rose 6% between 2021 and 2023, and extra ladies superior into higher-paying senior positions.
The council’s annual report additionally discovered that the racial/ethnic wage gap didn’t enhance over the identical time interval. Women of shade stay overrepresented in lower-paying industries and positions and inflexible office practices do not accommodate for the wants of working dad and mom, the report discovered, in addition to persistent bias in hiring and promotion practices.
Equal pay for equal work
The council recruits firms in Boston to signal the 100% Talent Compact, a pledge to work towards fixing wage and development inequities and a dedication to share their payroll knowledge. More than 250 employers have joined the initiative.
The concept is that pay transparency will result in pay equity, or basically equal compensation for work of equal or comparable worth, no matter employee gender, race or different demographic class.
Other cities have reached out in the hope of reaching comparable success, however the mannequin could also be arduous to duplicate, Borman stated. In Boston, main employers equivalent to MassMutual and Mass General had been early co-signers.
“There’s a general feeling among CEOs that this is something that has to be paid attention to,” Borman stated.
Those firms have additionally labored carefully with the mayor, she added, noting that “the public and private partnership has helped.”
Equal alternatives for development
Going ahead, having extra ladies in the C-suite is essential to additional progress. “There’s a wage gap but there’s also something called a power gap,” Borman stated.
Even in a metropolis in which barely greater than half of all skilled workers are ladies, ladies are sometimes prevented from getting the identical alternatives to advance, based on a separate Women in the Workplace research from Lean In and McKinsey.
“We need employers to continue their efforts to address the power gap by advancing women into positions of power, and therefore higher pay, at the same rate as men,” Borman stated.
That’s the place progress typically falls quick, the Lean In report discovered.
“The ‘broken rung’ is the biggest barrier to women’s advancement,” Rachel Thomas, Lean In’s co-founder and CEO, recently told CNBC.
“Companies are effectively leaving women behind from the very beginning of their careers, and women can never catch up,” Thomas stated.
Ultimately, that’s the greatest impediment to success. Even transferring “closer to equity isn’t enough,” Borman stated. “We are working towards complete elimination but it’s going to take promoting women into higher-paying jobs.”