Understanding the Gender Pay Gap – Nikita Bansal
Although modern-day society is getting far more egalitarian than it was before, there are still bigger strides to be made. The gender pay gap between men and women remains a significant issue, and for women of non-white demographics, the pay gap is even wider. To be even more exact, a woman earns 82 cents for every dollar earned by a man, which is quite upsetting.
I looked at some charts on the US Census Bureau website and learned that there is still a noticeable gap between how male high schoolers and female high schoolers get paid, and, as a high schooler myself, it astonished me how the gender pay gap is significant at considerably low positions.
Firstly, why do is there a gap between women’s’ earnings and men’s earnings? The answer is this. Women take time off to care for their children and when they return back to the workforce, they receive lower pay since they were not continuously progressing in their careers. While some men do take years off to care for their children, most are less likely to do this, which leads them to earn even more, since they didn’t have a gap in their careers.
Also, there exists an unconscious bias in which employers view women candidates as less favorable than their counterpart male candidates. This can be attributed to gender stereotypes also, which is a conscious factor. For women of color, the gender bias increases even more.
This is simply not fair to women, who are just as qualified as men, for the positions they apply to. In one study I found conducted by researchers at the University of Colorado, “When there was only one woman in a pool of four finalists for a job, the odds of the woman being hired were statistically zero. The odds of hiring a woman were over 79 times greater when at least two women were in the finalist pool.” (https://www.forbes.com/sites/michelletravis/2025/02/11/how-to-reduce-hiring-bias-against-women-study-finds-key-role-for-hr/) I was quite upset by this since we are in a modern age and more needs to be done.
What can we do to close the gender pay gap? First of all, there has to be unbiased hiring processes to make sure women can get the opportunities they deserve. Also, most importantly, there needs to be equitable time-off policies for women to be able to get back to their jobs where they left off so women are not left behind. Finally, there needs to be more encouragement to help support women that want to pursue STEM careers, most which are high paying and dominated by men. In my opinion, these three solutions are the most crucial and effective.
– Nikita Bansal, Summer 2025 Intern
https://genderpolicyreport.umn.edu/what-causes-the-wage-gap/#:~:text=Flexibility%20vs.&text=While%20many%20factors%20contribute%20to,wages%20between%20men%20and%20women. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/03/04/gender-pay-gap-in-us-has-narrowed-slightly-over-2-decades/