State of the Union 2018: Earnings

Gender wage gaps, as conventionally measured, understate the extent of gender inequality in the labor market. When gender differences in wages are examined in conjunction with gender differences in labor force participation, fringe benefits, and self-employment income, men’s average labor earnings are 75 percent higher than women’s. Under this fuller accounting, women thus earn 57 cents for each dollar earned by men. Although women have come to comprise almost 50 percent of the formal labor market, their representation in top labor income groups has risen very slowly. In the most recent available data, just 16 percent of the top 1 percent of labor income earners are women.

Reference Information

Author: 

Emmanuel Saez
Publisher: 
Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality
Publication Date: 
March 2018