BlueSky Thinking Summary

The gender pay gap, which significantly narrowed from 1976 to 2019, has plateaued since the late 1990s according to Nicola Bianchi, since the late 1990s.

It reflects that this slowdown is related to the fact that older workers are continuing to hold higher-paying jobs longer.

As these older cohorts age and retire, their wage differentials are added to the newer entrants' profiles, which creates the illusion of narrowly growing gender pay gaps amongst the young, when real pay parity over careers hasn't improved.

Bianchi's findings suggest that very important contributors to this gap are changes in educational choices, especially college major selection toward higher-paying fields by men.

Because these trends will be challenging to reverse, Bianchi is nonetheless hopeful.

These solutions will entail urging new initiatives to move women into higher-paying fields or raising wages in traditionally female-dominated fields as effective solutions to the problem.

Indeed, if this complex interplay of demographics through the age factor and educational choices between the different streams of education is ignored, then it will jeopardize any progress toward improving gender equity in earnings.