Gender wage gap widens for the first time in two decades

The gender pay gap widened last year for the first time in 20 years, according to new data from the Census Bureau.

Adjusted for inflation, men who work full-time year-round saw their wages go up 3%, while women who work full-time year-round only saw their wages go up 1.5%.

The gender pay gap has been narrowing — slowly — for the last 40 years. This is the first time it’s widened in a statistically significant way since 2003.

Even though wages grew for both men and women last year, “this growth hasn’t been equally shared across demographic groups — especially for women, especially for women of color, who tend to work in lower-paying jobs,” said Sara Estep at the Center for American Progress.

Women are more likely than men to work in health care and education — both fields in which Estep said wages haven’t grown all that quickly.

In comparison, “we saw a ton of wage growth in manufacturing, for example,” she said. “And where did those jobs go to? They primarily went to men.”

Economists call this “occupational segregation.” There’s less of it than there used to be, noted Heidi Shierholz at the Economic Policy Institute. But it’s still a big factor in the gender pay gap.

Similarly, “women shoulder disproportionate responsibility for caregiving in our society,” she said. “That is changing, but it is still the truth.”

Given the lack of affordable childcare, paid leave and paid sick time, “when somebody has caregiving responsibilities, it just makes it incredibly difficult to work,” she added.

And that often pulls down their wages over time.