Women of all ethnicities working full time in the United States earned an average of only 78 percent of what men made in 2013. While this largely gender wage gap is an essential statistical illustration of how women take home less money than men across the country, it is vital to consider the specific elements: A number of different things, including race and ethnicity, interact to affect earnings. After studying the wage gap for women of color, for instance, it becomes clear that on average, women of color experience a much greater wage deficit than white women.
Women of color are more likely than white women to be pushed into the lowest-earning occupations in the service sector and in sales and office jobs. This trend is mainly noticeable for Hispanic women. Working women in 2014, 62 percent of Hispanics were bunched into just two job sets—service occupations and sales and office occupations. This is linked with 57 percent of blacks, 51 percent of whites, and 44 percent of Asians in the same job categories.
Unlike most developed nations, the United States lacks federally mandated paid family and medical leave and paid sick days. These policies allow caregivers to balance family responsibilities with their jobs, and lack of access means that women, who often bear the brunt of family care, will have to take time off without getting paid to care for themselves, sick family members, or new children. The end result is that women lose out on pay, promotions, and other benefits that accrue through tenure in the labor force. When family caregiving responsibilities are coupled with the burden of being a major financial provider, women often lose out even more.
Despite all of these reasons, my research has found that a percentage of the gender wage gap is due to other factors. These factors could include the conscious or unconscious gender discrimination that women encounter in their careers. Women of color, who might be subject to both gender and racial discrimination, could experience a double burden. More robust workplace protections could alleviate the social and economic factors that drive the wage gap for women of color. Nevertheless, public policy alone will not close the gender wage gap for women of color. The United States needs to address both the structural drivers behind the pay gap and the persistent cultural biases against women and people of color if it wants to truly affect change for these populations. Closing the gap will require multi-layered solutions that together help safeguard that the work women perform is valued fairly, that women are not penalized unfairly for their caregiving obligations, and that there is greater transparency in workplace pay practices. Here are two steps we can take that could make a difference:
Raise the tipped minimum wage
The gender wage gap is particularly prominent among tipped workers. The federal tipped minimum wage, which hasn’t been changed since 1991, only pays workers $2.13 per hour. According to the Economic Policy Institute, women make up two-thirds of tipped workers and are 70 percent of food servers and bartenders, occupations that comprise more than half of the tipped workforce. Tipped workers have a higher poverty rate than non-tipped workers, and 46 percent rely on government assistance to make ends meet.
As the burden of tipped-wage poverty falls primarily on women and their families, raising the tipped minimum wage could make a real difference in decreasing the gender pay gap. Recent proposals advocate raising the tipped minimum wage to 70 percent of the minimum wage to ensure that the majority of a worker’s income is coming from his or her employer, instead of from tips.
Invest in affordable, high-quality childcare and early childhood education
Each day, 11 million children spend time in the care of someone other than a parent. Among children under age 6, 65 percent either lives with only a single parent who works or two parents who both work. For parents of young children, particularly those who are low-income, the lack of affordable, high-quality early childhood programs can prevent working parents from ensuring that their families are cared for while they fulfill the demands of their jobs and can inhibit their long-term success. Furthermore, childcare coasted more than median rent in every state in 2012, yet access to reliable childcare is a requirement for working parents to maintain employment.
Legislation such as the proposed Strong Start for America’s Children Act invests in high-quality and sustainable early learning environments for young children, working families, and the future of our country. Investing in affordable, high-quality child care creates long-lasting structures that support both working parents and children, increasing women’s ability to keep a job, excel in the workforce, and lower the gender wage gap.