Reason for wage gap. I agree with some points buy certainly not all of them!
One article from several at http://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/amazon-buy-whole-foods-13-7-billion-cash-n773281
Gender Wage Gap Widens to 43 Percent by Age 45
by LISA TOLIN
It’s no secret that women lag behind men in wages — making about 83 cents to every dollar a man
earns. But new research shows that wage gap widens dramatically by the time they reach their 40s.
Using Census Bureau databases that track individual workers and firms over time, a team of
economists found that at age 25, collegeeducated women make about 89 percent of what collegeeducated
men do. But that drops to about 57 percent at age 45.
The researchers wanted to find out how much of this 43 percent gap was due to choices women
made, as opposed to differing skills or discrimination. While the data doesn’t address motherhood
directly, the gap clearly widens during women’s childbearing years.
First, they looked at differences in earnings as people either stayed in jobs or switched. They found
that most of the earnings difference happened when employees stay put — when men and women
both stay at the same firm, men have faster earnings growth.
But the pay gap also widens when men and women switch jobs: Men get a bigger pay bump when
they join a new company, and are somewhat more likely to make the move. Even though women
changed jobs almost as frequently as men, the pay bump was especially small for women who were
married.
That’s in part because a married couple might make choices based on the “primary career,” which is
usually the man’s, the researchers say. So a joint relocation might benefit the primary career and do
little for (or even hurt) the secondary one.
Married women tend to be “more stuck in place” because of family obligations, says Claudia Goldin,
an economics professor at Harvard and one of the authors of the study. “You’re attached to another
person, maybe several people. So is your optimum their optimum? Maybe not.”
In a second study, the researchers looked at how the choice of different occupations came into play.
Women are more likely to work in lowerpaying jobs like retail or services, and in lowerpaying
occupations within fields like business.
Still, the researchers said that different occupations accounted for only about a third of the widening
gender gap.
The wage gap was less pronounced for people without college degree
