Women may make up roughly half of the workforce, but when it comes to managerial positions they are still paid less than their male counterparts.
According to the Washington Post, the wage gap between male and female managers actually widened during the economic boom from 1995 to 2000.
“A New Look Through the Glass Ceiling: Where are the Women?” is a study released yesterday by the General Accounting Office, which looks at these new figures.
According to the study, women account for only 12 percent of corporate officers.
“While there has been overall progress for women, they are stalling or sliding back when they reach management,” said Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney, D-N.Y., in a New York Times article. Maloney and Rep. John D. Dingell, D-Mich., commissioned the study.
The study revealed that in 1995 a full-time female communications manager made 86 cents for every dollar a male made in the same position. In 2000, the same woman made only 73 cents to the man’s dollar, the Post reported.
“The widest gap was between parents,” who were managers, Martha Farnsworth Riche, an economist and former director of the Census Bureau, told the Times. “Overall, women are equal to men up to about 33 years of age and then they steadily lose.”
Riche said the drop-off probably reflected that many women that age were most likely to begin raising children. Once they started families, mothers who were managers could count on earning only 66 percent of what fathers who were managers were paid, she told the Times.
According to the study, about 60 percent of married women managers do not have children at home, while 60 percent of their male counterparts are currently raising children.
Dingell and Maloney told the Post that the study brings up many family issues, including maternity leave policies, and merits a fresh look at the Equal Rights Amendment.
