Women's Earnings and Income
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Earnings and Income

• The median annual income for full-time, year-round women workers in 2004 was $31,223 compared to men’s $40,798.
• In 2003, of the 33,189,000 dual-career couples, wives earned more than their husbands 25.2% of the time, up from 17.8% in 1987.
• In 2005, the median weekly earnings of women in full time management, professional, and related occupations was $813 per week, compared to $1,113 for men.
• Asian women who are full-time wage and salary workers have higher median weekly earnings than women of all other races/ethnicities as well as African-American and Latino men.

  

• Education is a factor in income – 2005 statistics show that higher degrees lead to higher median salaries.
  • Median weekly earnings of full time workers with particular degrees:
    • Doctoral: $1,421
    • Professional: $1,370
    • Master's $1,129
    • Bachelor’s: $937
    • High school graduate: $583
    • Some high school, no diploma: $409
  • Earnings for women with college degrees have increased by 34.4% since 1979 (on an inflationadjusted basis) compared to a 21.7% increase for male college graduates
  • Between 1960-61 and 2003-2004, the percent of bachelor’s degrees earned by women rose from 38.5% to 57.4% and by 2013-2014, they are projected to earn 60.0%.
  • 1950 and 2005, the percent of women 25 and over with four or more years of college rose from 5.2% to 26.5% 8 Among women ages 25-29, 32.0% have a bachelor’s, master’s, professional, or doctorate degree – higher than the 25.3% of men in that age group who have a those degrees.

  Wage Gap
  

• Women earn 76.5% as much as men in 2005, based on the median income for full-time, year-round women workers.
• Based on the median weekly earnings for full-time workers, however, which excludes self-employed and does not reflect pay differences such as annual bonuses10, in 2005 women earned 81.0% as much as men.
  • In 1979, women earned 62.5% as much as men
  
• The wage gap between women and men was widest for whites and Asians.

  

• In 2005, the earnings of women in full time management, professional, and related occupations were 73.0% of men's.

Although Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that women’s median earnings are less than men’s, the reasons behind the gap are highly debated. Some studies state that the gap can be explained to a large extent by nondiscriminatory factors and are based in a division of labor in the home that relies more heavily on women than on men. Women are not only less likely to work continuously during their lives, but that anticipation of child-related work interruptions and home responsibilities further influence women’s choice of occupation and the type of firm they choose.12 Women also have fewer incentives to invest in market-based formal education and on-the-job training and may avoid jobs that demand large investment in skills.13 Meanwhile, further studies have found that a significant wage gap exists between women and men even when expected factors like family and labor force experience were eliminated and look toward systemic discrimination as one of the explanations.14, 15 Two additional studies indicate that women earn far less than 76.5% of what men earn when measured over many years instead of over one year. Using what they see as a more inclusive 15-year time frame and taking into account women’s lower work hours and their years with zero earnings due to family care, the authors find that women workers in their prime earning years make only 38.0% of what men earn, with the average prime age working woman earning $273,592 (in 1999 dollars) across those 15 years while the average working man earned $722,693 (in 1999 dollars).

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