Money Crashers: The Gender Wage Gap

Last year, I wrote a piece for Money Crashers on how men and women deal with money. It discusses how men and women differ in shopping, saving, and investing habits, how they deal with debt, and their hopes and fears about money. One topic I didn't cover in this article, though, was the differences in earning between women and men. I originally intended to, but the more I looked into the subject, the more clear it became that this was a major can of worms that really needed an article all to itself.

And here that article is: The Gender Wage Gap – Do Men Really Earn More Than Women? It addresses such questions as:

• How big is the gender wage gap, really? (The answer depends on what you're measuring: data across all workers, full-time workers only, or men and women in the same field. But I can give you one spoiler: The commonly cited statistic that "women earn 70 cents for each dollar men earn" isn't right by any of these measures.)
• How does the gap vary based on factors like age, race, and location?
• How has it changed over time?
• What's behind it? Is it mostly differences in the career paths men and women choose, the hours they work, time taken off for family responsibilities, or outright sexism? (Answer: A little of all those things.)
• What effects does this gap have, not just for women, but for families that depend on their income?
• How does it affect the economy as a whole?
• And finally, what - if anything - can be done about it? (Answer: "Equal pay for equal work" isn't a solution. It will require much more complex changes to the structure of the workplace and society as a whole. But this isn't impossible; in fact, in some places, it's already happening.)

I found this article really interesting to work on. I hope you'll find it equally interesting to read.