Bert Caldwell: Our glass ceiling is still transparently unfair to women

For women in the workplace, it never seems to be payback time.

Despite years of public debate, and some real effort, women in the United States continue to earn less than men. Education, the great equalizer, has done little to eliminate the inequities.

A study released Monday by the American Association of University Women found that wages for women who graduated in 1999-2000 were only 80 percent those of their male peers one year after graduation. Taking a separate look back at 1992-1993 graduates, a decade later women earned only 69 percent what males did.

The differences were explained somewhat by the choices women and men made as students and workers.

Women gravitate into lower-paying professions such as education and psychology. Many go to work for non-profit organizations. Men take a disproportionate number of the jobs in engineering and business.

But, as study co-author Catherine Hill told a congressional committee Tuesday, those decisions do not account entirely for the pay gaps.

She controlled for factors such as education, occupation, hours, and children. A 5 percent difference in pay remained for women one year after graduation — before child-rearing even becomes an issue. The controls whittled the spread after a decade at work to 12 percent.

Over a lifetime, those disparities snowball into total incomes $500,000 less than men, lower Social Security, lower social security for children and families.

Our society punishes mothers, rewards fathers.

No matter how hard researchers tried to squeeze the numbers, Hill said, there was always a residual: discrimination.

“This research asked a basic but important question: If a woman made the same choices as a man, would she earn the same pay? The answer is no,” she said.

In professions where women dominate, the pay gap tends to be smaller. The difference in education, for example, is 5 percent after one year. Women biologists, on the other hand, earn just 75 percent of the male specimens.

By state, the differentials are all over the map.

Among workers with college degrees, women in Washington earned just 71 percent what males did in 2003-2005. Compared with women in other states, they do fairly well, ranking 14th with $46,301 in annual pay. But the median earnings for men were $65,531. Idaho ranked much higher — seventh — comparing women to men, but only because the men earn just $51,218.

The highest-earning women are in Washington, D.C., where they bring home slightly more than $60,000. The nation’s capital also has the highest percentage of women with college degrees. Only West Virginia, where women and men alike are not paid well, has a narrower gender wage gap than the District.

The study suggests several solutions. The most obvious — a shift into better-paying professions — is already under way.

A new Bureau of Labor Statistics study for the years 2000-2005 shows the number women holding jobs above the median salary increased 1.7 million, compared with 220,000 for men. Women netted an additional 1.1 million jobs in health care, financial services and management, which pay among the highest wages.

Still, women’s salaries trail those of men.

More women are taking science and math courses, although the study says schools must do more to encourage enrollment in those courses. An additional unit of calculus in high school doubles the odds that a woman will major in math or science.

Women must become tougher negotiators for themselves. Women have been brought up to be less competitive, and they are not as ready as men to be outspoken about their accomplishments.

“Learned behaviors and expectations … tend to minimize women’s pay,” the study says.

Addressing employers, the study says better part-time and flexibility helps keep women on the job. More radically, it suggests time be de-emphasized as a measure of productivity.

The association is backing new legislation that would increase transparency about wages, and protect those who complain. Socially, the nation has to get over the notion that pay discrimination is acceptable.

That has not happened in the four decades since President Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act.