10-24-2024
Data shows that the gender gap grew, and women continue to remain underrepresented in the corporate world.
An annual report from the U.S. Census Bureau shows the gender wage gap widened between men and women working full-time for the first time in 20 years. The data is from 2023, during the post-pandemic labor market recovery, when women began returning to full-time work. Wages did rise for everyone last year but were higher for men than women. The gender gap is back to 2019 levels. In 2023, women earned 83 cents for every dollar earned by men. That is down from its highest point of 84 cents. In the five years before, the gap had narrowed each year. Data gathered from 2024 (released next year) will give a clearer picture of whether the decline is a trend or an anomaly. The Labor Department's chief economist stated the reversion to the pre-pandemic level shows how the pandemic "slowed the march to gender equity." Latinas remain the lowest-paid workers in the U.S. and were the hardest hit by the pandemic.
In September, McKinsey partnered with LeanIn.Org for its tenth report on Women in the Workplace. They found that women's representation at all levels of corporate management increased over the last ten years, making up 29 percent of C-suite positions. However, women remain underrepresented across the pipeline, "a gender gap that persists regardless of race and ethnicity." Women are still less likely to be hired into entry-level roles, making it much harder to catch up to men at the manager level. At the current rate of progress, "it would take 22 years for White women to reach parity." The parity estimate is twice as long for women of color. The report points to five core practices for debiasing during hiring: training on antibias, providing clear evaluation criteria, aspiring to create diverse candidate slates, developing clear criteria for performance reviews, and sending reminders to avoid bias. One in four of the companies surveyed had used all four. Companies using all of these practices made the biggest strides. The authors call on companies to rekindle their commitments to equity and fairness.