The gender wage gap in Ohio is over 20 percent. Women working full-time, year-round earn 79.5 percent of what men earn working full-time, year-round.
Men earn an average of over $12,000 more than women in a year in Ohio.
Men earn an average of over $12,000 more than women in a year in Ohio.
When Community Solutions highlighted this ongoing disparity in the Status of Women fact sheets, many asked us what is driving the gap? We had the same question. We’re in good company. Researchers from the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Department of Labor’s Women’s Bureau looked into this same question in a report published in 2020. The results? “Research from the Women’s Bureau and the U.S. Census Bureau shows that 70% of the gender pay gap remains unexplained after adjusting for gender differences in education, occupation, industry, work experience, hours worked, and other worker characteristics. This remaining unexplained wage gap is due to a combination of unobservable worker characteristics and discrimination.” [author’s emphasis]
The gender wage gap is a result of gender discrimination, not skill or experience differences
While differences in work experience, occupation and industry, and, unfortunately, race, ethnicity, and age contribute to the gender wage gap, the data reveal that these combined characteristics explain only 33 to 41 percent of the gender wage gap. The research shows that the gender wage gap is primarily the result of gender discrimination.
To make any progress in closing the gender wage gap will require strategies that directly dismantle discrimination.
Questions about the causes of the gender wage gap imply something else at work. Researchers have spent a lot of time looking for an explanation that is not discrimination. Why? Perhaps because it feels so much easier to define the issue as one of education or caregiving challenges, because those barriers seem so much more actionable than discrimination. Nevertheless, to make any progress in closing the gender wage gap will require strategies that directly dismantle discrimination.
Work- and education-related causes and impacts on the gender wage gap
Differences between men and women’s work experience, occupation and industry choices, and education are commonly used reasons to explain away the gender wage gap. The study considered all of these explanations. This study is unique in that it was able to link large-scale, nationally representative survey data to administrative records to compare detailed histories of work experience between men and women. It measured work histories for individuals who were 18 or older for the prior 5, 10, 15, and 25 years.
Work Experience
Differences in work experiences accounted for more of the wage gap over time. Looking at 5 years of work history, less than one percent of the gender wage gap was explained by differences in experience. Looking at 25 years of work history, nine percent of the gender wage gap is accounted for by differences in work experience.
Occupation and industry choices
Gender differences in occupations and industry explain much more of the gender wage gap than gender differences in work history, accounting for approximately one third of the gap. The gender wage gap varies significantly by occupation; while wages are at parity in some occupations, the gap is as large as 45 percent in others.
This is true as well in Ohio, where wages are almost at parity in low-paying community and social-service occupations, but the gap is largest for legal occupations, which is the occupation with the highest median income.
Occupation wage gaps in Ohio
Education
Considering educational attainment does not contribute to explaining the gender wage gap. When looking at men’s and women’s wages, we see that not only did women earn less than men in every educational attainment group, but women with one level of educational attainment higher than men earned less except for women with bachelor’s degrees compared to men with some college. Women’s earnings were lowest relative to men’s among workers with master’s degrees (71 percent).
These findings from the Women’s Bureau align with the Status of Women fact sheets, which show that women in Ohio earn degrees at higher rates than men at every level of education, and yet the wage gap persists.
The gender wage gap is wider for Black and Hispanic women than for white women
In 2022, compared to white, non-Hispanic men, the wage gaps were 20 percent for white, non-Hispanic women; 31 percent for Black women; and 43 percent for Hispanic women. When gender wage gaps are small within a particular race, it is when the annual earnings are low overall. The gender wage gaps are greatest where the annual earnings are highest.
The Department of Labor calculated that in 2019 alone, segregation by industry and occupation cost Black women an estimated $39.3 billion and Hispanic women an estimated $46.7 billion in lower wages compared to white men. You can explore earnings and earnings ratios by sex, race, and more than 300 occupations with this tool from the Women’s Bureau.
Women aged 50-59 working full-time, year-round were paid about $56,000 annually – $18,300 less than their male counterparts.
The gender wage gap only widens with age
Nationally in 2022, women aged 50-59 working full-time, year-round were paid about $56,000 annually – $18,300 less than their male counterparts. This represents a 25 percent wage gap, which widens to 27 percent for women aged 60-69. By comparison, the gender wage gap for workers aged 20-29 is seven percent, or about $3,000 annually.
Women lose hundreds of thousands of dollars over their lifetime to the gender wage gap
When you start from behind it is hard to catch up. Later salaries build on earlier levels; both in what an employee considers fair, and an employer is willing to offer. There is also an opportunity cost for wealth building and saving for retirement. There is less time for your money to work for you and less contributions to Social Security.
Estimates suggest that over the course of their careers, women lose an average of nearly $400,000 relative to white non-Hispanic men due to gender and racial wage gaps. Hispanic and Native American and Pacific Islander women make $1 million less than white non-Hispanic men, while Black women make nearly $900,000 less.
Industry solutions to close the gender wage gap
Two approaches to dismantling discrimination in the gender wage gap are to ban salary history requirements and promote pay transparency.
Considering salary history when negotiating compensation perpetuates the gender wage gap and is antithetical to the idea of equal pay for equal work. Pay transparency mitigates discrimination in wages by having publicly available information about compensation. Employers can enact these policies on their own, but legislation would ensure that these best practices become requirements in the fight against gender discrimination.
Cincinnati, Toledo, and Columbus have passed components of pay transparency policies. In Cleveland, Collaborate Cleveland is leading the charge for pay equity. In 2023, HB115 Enact Ohio Equal Pay Act was introduced in the Statehouse, and in 2024 SB231 to require a system for anonymous reporting of wage discrimination and SB232 to create fair paycheck workplace certification were introduced. All these bills have been referred to committees without hearings but represent the next steps in the fight for pay equity.
