What Gender Wage Gap?

Conventional wisdom holds that women suffer employer discrimination because they make 79 cents for every dollar men make doing the same work. Not so fast, argues June O'Neill, a former Congressional Budget Office director.

If male-female work experience is factored in, the wage "gap" decreases from 79 cents to 88.6 cents on the dollar. And if schooling level, cognitive skills, time out of the labor force for child-rearing, and type of employer are factored in, the gender wage "gap" virtually disappears, to 96.7 cents on the dollar.

Further supporting this conclusion, O'Neill finds that single women without children, on average, make 8 percent more than their similarly situated male colleagues. This suggests that it is the social pressures of being a mother and/or wife, and not employer discrimination, that drives down female wages.

For full details, see "The Disappearing Wage Gap."