Should Government Address the Gender Wage Gap?

October 7, 2024

Women’s participation in the labor force has increased significantly over the past several decades. They’re working longer hours and pursuing higher levels of education in greater numbers. Still, even though pay discrimination is illegal, women in most job categories earn less in wages on average than men.

Those in favor of eliminating the wage gap say government can promote policies that ensure fairness and equity, and that equal pay would increase productivity and benefit the economy as a whole. Those who aren’t in favor of government action say it misses the mark because the wage gap results not from discrimination but choice: Women tend to pursue jobs that pay less.

Should government address the gender wage gap? A labor policy researcher and a member of Congress face off on the question.

There is no question: Men and women in the same job deserve the same pay.

Let’s start with the facts: Women working full-time earn 84 cents for every dollar paid to men. That drops to 78 cents when you include seasonal and part-time workers—about one-quarter of women in the U.S. workforce—resulting in $11,000 less in earnings over the course of a year and costing women more than $1.6 trillion in lost wages annually, according to U.S. Census data. The gap is the widest for women of color. Across industries, Black women earn 66 cents and Hispanic women 59 cents for every dollar paid to White men.

I’m leading the fight in Congress for equal pay. My legislation, the Paycheck Fairness Act, builds on the Equal Pay Act of 1963. Among other things, it would close legal loopholes that allow employers to justify unequal pay, and it would give employees more resources to challenge pay discrimination.

Since introducing this bill in 2023, I’ve seen an evolution in how people argue against fair pay. Rather than denying that the pay gap exists, they say that the “real” gap is much smaller and that women just make different choices, like taking lower-paying jobs in education or caregiving, or taking time off to raise children. They call this the “choice gap.”

Government must take bold action to close the wage gap completely.

This argument tries to shift responsibility for fixing the pay gap away from government and onto the women who are being underpaid.
It ignores that women make different choices than men because they often don’t have the same opportunities. For example, research has shown that women who enter male-dominated occupations are paid less than men, and that mothers are often offered lower pay when they’re hired. Choosing a high-paying career can only take women so far when discrimination is deeply rooted.

To end unfair pay, government must be bold. The alternative is to hold back women—half of our population—from their full potential, especially if they choose to have children. That’s no way to grow the economy and support families.

—U.S. REPRESENTATIVE ROSA DELAURO

Democrat, Connecticut

The wage gap reached an all-time low of 16 percent in 2022, as women’s median weekly wages climbed to 84 percent of men’s. It’s not 100 percent—despite equal pay being the law of the land since the 1960s—but it’s an improvement from the 80 to 82 percent range seen between 2004 and 2020.

This statistic doesn’t mean all women must earn 84 cents on the dollar for their work. With millions more job openings in the U.S. than unemployed workers, a woman facing pay discrimination can jump ship to an employer that doesn’t discriminate. Employers that do discriminate would be hard-pressed to compete against employers that don’t.

But the often-cited 84 percent can be misleading. It compares men with women in totally different jobs that pay less because of the education required or because women are working fewer hours. Comparing men and women in the same job, with all other factors equal, the pay gap shrinks to just one cent, according to Payscale’s most recent report.

So what’s really driving the wage gap? Simply put: choice. Many women prefer flexibility in their jobs, or part-time work. They’re foregoing higher wages in order to work the days and hours that suit their lives, or to find the work-life balance they need to raise children.

What’s really driving the wage gap? Simply put: choice.

Efforts to legislate equal earnings often restrict personal choices and reduce women’s income. In Sweden and Norway, “daddy quotas”—which encourage fathers to take time off from work to care for their children so that mothers can work—didn’t improve, and may have negatively affected, women’s pay. And a study by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that paid family-leave laws actually stalled the closing of the wage gap.

As a woman, I don’t want to be paid less than a male colleague who does the same job. But as a working mother with six kids, I don’t want to have to fit the workplace mold of a single man with different personal priorities and career aspirations.

—RACHEL GRESZLER

Senior Research Fellow, The Heritage Foundation