COLUMBUS – Women still earn less than men, on average, but that gap is slowly narrowing. When it disappears, Justin Bieber will be 65 years old, perhaps Hillary Clinton’s and Donald Trump’s great-grandchildren will be running for president, or maybe we’ll finally have those flying cars we’ve been promised (or two driverless cars in every garage).
The year will be 2059 and that is when a new study indicates that the gender wage disparity in the U.S. will finally be gone.
According to a new report from the American Association of University Women called “The Simple Truth about the Gender Pay Gap,” full-time working women are slowly closing the disparity, making about 80 percent nationally of what their male counterparts make.
In Ohio, however, the gap is slightly wider. Ohio’s working women make only 78 percent of men.
It’s not as simple as women being paid less for the same job. Even in the better-paying technology field, they are often shuffled into lower-paying positions.
“Men might get the job as coders, which are the most highly paid jobs, and women get slotted into the testing part, where they still have to have a lot of computer and technology skills but they just get paid less and they don’t have the opportunity to really rise up in the organization either,” said Marilyn Watkins, policy director at the Economic Opportunity Institute.
Watkins says Ohio could strengthen its equal-pay laws by looking to other states. This summer, she says, Massachusetts passed one of the strongest equal-pay laws in the country, which makes sure companies pay equally for comparable jobs and job requirements.
“For example, cafeteria workers and custodians might be deemed comparable jobs even though one is traditionally female and gets paid a lot less than the traditionally male custodial jobs,” she said.
The report also found that African-American women make about two-thirds and Hispanic or Latina women make about half of what white men make nationwide.