Women's Paychecks Are Shrinking--And Policy Isn't Keeping Up
(a thoroughly angry-making, depressing, completely unsurprising, read)
Women’s Paychecks Are Shrinking—And Policy Isn’t Keeping Up
PUBLISHED 2/1/2025 by Wendy J. Fox
No, women aren’t “choosing” lower pay—the system is rigged.
Women now earn 75 cents on a man’s dollar, which suggests the wage gap will not be closed until 2068.
Despite earning a 45 percent increase in real wages between 1980 and 2018, wage growth for women has declined in the last two fiscal years.
The Sandwich Generation, middle-aged adults with both aging parents and children, remains smashed between a rock and a hard place.
Even highly skilled women like medical doctors, especially those with children, earn significantly less than their male counterparts.
Care work is integral to all other work, according to economist Anwesha Majumder.
A fan holds up a sign that says “Equal Pay Times Up Pay Up” in support of the United States Women’s National Team fight for equal pay at Red Bull Arena on March 8, 2020, in Harrison, N.J. (Ira L. Black / Corbis via Getty Images)
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Reps. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Katherine Clark (D-Mass.) with Pherabe, 4, a child of a congressional staff member, attend a press conference on equal pay at the U.S. Capitol on March 10, 2023. (Kevin Dietsch / Getty Images)
. . . . . .
Majumer goes on to contextualize the current wage gap. “Care work is the work that makes all other work possible,” she said. “It is highly undercompensated because it’s seen as ‘women’s work.’ These are jobs that pay low wages and many women, particularly Black, Hispanic, Asian, Indigenous and immigrant women, are occupationally segregated into these jobs because of outdated beliefs around who can and should provide care.” ******Globally, unpaid care work by women represents $10.8 TRILLION—roughly the same size as some estimates of the global tech economy.******
What’s Next?
In the face of the lack of a national paid leave program, inadequate and unaffordable child and elder care options, and the uncompensated structure of the FMLA, the systemic inequality underlying the gender wage gap is bound to persist. Despite the recent progress made on NDAs and forced arbitration which will benefit women at work, this legislation does not address pay.
And Biden’s proclamation earlier this month declaring that the Equal Rights Amendment has been ratified is important, but makes no legal difference—it is Congress who must act. Women don’t need a study, report or statistic to know that we get the work done, whether that is taking care of a sick kid, helping out an ailing parent, or showing up to projects and completing tasks at work—more than likely doing all three, and often, all at once. Though the contributing factors to the wage gap are historical and complicated, one thing is crystal clear: It is not a reflection of competency.
https://msmagazine.com/2025/02/01/equal-pay-wage-gap-women-work-equal-rights-amendment-childcare/