Aug 22, 2002 3 min read

The Pennsylvania State Data Center at Penn State Harrisburg reports that salaries for women working full-time grew at a faster pace than men between 1989 and 1999. While this indicates the gender wage gap is closing, a substantial disparity still exists. The data used in the study is several years old, but it shouldn’t be dismissed simply because the freshest numbers aren’t available. And researchers had to do a bit of adjusting as the 1989 figures are based on median incomes while the 1999 figures were median earnings. To understand the difference think of a tax return where earnings are listed and then every conceivable dollar is added to that sum to determine income.

Still after fiddling, so that apples are apples and pears, pears, the study concludes that the median earnings for women employed full-time, year-round, rose 13.1 percent, while salaries for men grew just 1.5 percent. Yet, men still earned on average $37,051 a year while women earned $8,164 less. Some of this can be explained away as women tend to drop out of the workforce or take part-time jobs in order to care for their families and therefore lose seniority and longevity pay. Researchers also offer an explanation that women have been more likely to choose less specialized occupations than males that carry lower wages. The closing of the gap indicates this trend has changed.

There could be still another explanation: women holding lateral positions to their male counterparts have not been compensated with a like amount. Certain unenlightened segments of society still hold that a man should earn more as he must support his family and that as a matter of dignity husbands should earn more than their wives. Although this is poppycock logic, it still persists despite laws that require equal pay for equal work. That the gap is closing could be attributed in part to court-ordered changes in attitude where employers who still see pink and blue when divvying up the green are heavily penalized.

Workers who are unionized are best protected, especially when job descriptions are married to pay scales. Those who toil in non-union shops have no choice than to trust that their employers are fair. That the gap is narrowing indicates that more employers have chosen to compensate workers for their skills, not their sex.

Area wages

On another note, the study breaks down wages by county. As is to be expected Fayette and Greene counties did not see as substantial of gains. Women in Fayette and Greene made some gains posting respective gains of 9.1 and 10 percent in earnings growth. Yet their wages still fall more than $10,000 below men, a larger gap than posted statewide and cause for concern, especially since area men’s wages actually fell. When 1989 figures are adjusted to 1999 dollars, men’s median earnings dropped by 2.1 percent in Fayette and 6.8 percent in Greene.

While this raises some concern, it isn’t alarming. Again, the numbers are three years old and because of adjusting there is an error rate of plus or minus 5 percent. Since 1999, Fayette has lowered its unemployment rate and has seen job growth and an increase in earning potential.