Equal Pay Day
Today, April 24, is Equal Pay Day. New research by the American Association of University Women shows that the gap in pay between men and women has continued to widen. According to the study, which reviewed U.S. Department of Education data on 19,000 men and women:
For every dollar a man earned in 1994, a woman made 80 cents. By 2003, the gap had widened: Women earned 69 cents.
According to experts interviewed, part of the reason for the pay gap is still the lower number of women in math and science careers. According to the Department of Education, in the year 2000 about18% of undergraduate engineering majors and 39% of math majors were women. Even when men and women have similar degrees, women were more likely to be teaching in their chosen industry, whereas men tended to be in the business side of the industry.
Go to their website to learn more about Equal Pay Day and the reasons behind the wage gap. Talk with your teenage daughters about career choice and the fields in which they can earn more money. Urge them to take a good look at careers in math and sciences.
Fields where women earn at least 5% more than men:
*Sales engineers
*Radiation therapists
*Financiald analysts
*Tool and dye makers
College Majors with Higher Starting Salaries for Women:
*Petroleum engineering
*Physics
*Journalism
Most families are no longer the traditional family unit, where the man is the sole breadwinner. Most single-parent families are headed by women and, in two-parent families, both parents are likely to work. Women making less money than men is no longer simply an issue to become outraged over, it’s something which simply does not make sense.
Equal Pay Day, American Association of University Women, U.S. Department of Education, equal pay, gender differences, pay gap, parenting teens, parenting teenagers
Leave a Reply