The Pay Gap Is Still Prevalent

The world is constantly changing. I can’t even imagine what my day-to-day would be like now, if the world were still like how it was ten years ago. Constant updates in all aspects of our lives are constantly happening, so why are some aspects still stagnant?

Fifty years ago, America put the Equal Pay Act into effect. Fifty years later, and women are still not actually getting equal pay, or are at least not getting the opportunities to actually earn it.

According to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, which just released its yearly report on the median earnings for women and men, women are still earning less than men in nearly all of the 114 most common occupations.

In addition to that less-than-flattering statistic, the report shows two other key trends happing in the workforce right now, in relation to the wage gap: women are more than twice as likely as men to work in occupations with poverty wages. The median incomes for four out of ten of the most common career paths for women -- housekeeping, waitressing, nursing and cashiering -- are just not enough to help get a family of four above the poverty line.

When it comes to high-earning jobs, women are also in the less-than-favorable realm. When compared to men, women have the worst earnings in sales occupations, like insurance and retail.

The occupation with the largest pay gap? The insurance industry. Women in the insurance field earn 64.3 percent of men’s median weekly income. The institute’s study director says that it’s not a matter of women being under-qualified or not working as hard as men do in these fields, but more so that women are “less likely to be given the higher earning accounts or work in the big buck sales departments.”

Ladies, this is not okay. Fifty years is a long time for our pay to still not be equal. What are you going to do about this?

Ally Batista | Elite.

Twitter: @allybatista

Photo Credit: Getty Images