Gender gap in U.S. pay narrows

Gender gap in U.S. pay narrows
STATE'S DISPARITY AMONG SMALLEST, BUT SILICON VALLEY IS AN EXCEPTION
By Mike SwiftMercury News
Article Launched: 08/27/2008 01:30:50 AM PDT


The national earnings gap between full-time working men and women, according to a new report, is now the smallest in history. And California had the second-smallest gender gap in pay among the 50 states.
Full-time female workers in the United States now earn 78 percent of what their male counterparts earn, up from 77 percent last year, according to new data released Tuesday by the U.S. Census Bureau. In California, women earn 84 percent of what men earn, slightly behind Vermont.
Researchers, who for years have been watching the flood of women earning university degrees without a significant closing of the pay gap between men and women, said the narrowing of the gap in 2007 could be significant.
"It's very promising," said gender researcher Vicky Lovell, acting research director for the Institute for Women's Policy Research, a Washington, D.C., think tank. "It is just one year, but it does suggest that women's efforts to get more education, and to be even more committed to employment, may be paying off."
In Santa Clara County, however, where a recent University of California-Davis study found the state's lowest share of women in the top ranks of big companies, the male-female earnings gap remained stubbornly high. Women earned just 65 percent of men's earnings in 2007 - equal to Louisiana, the state with the second-largest gender gap.
Wendy Beecham, who runs the Forum for Women Entrepreneurs and Executives in Palo Alto, a sponsor of the UC-Davis
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study, said there is probably a connection between women's absence from the chief executive suite and lower pay.
"In Silicon Valley, you've got that technology aspect, but it's still a male-dominated field," Beecham said. "It's changing, but it's going to take time. There are more women graduates now, but they are young women and they are just entering the workforce. I think within five years things will be very different."
The fresh earnings data was part of the U.S. Census Bureau's annual unveiling of fresh income and poverty statistics for the nation, for each of the 50 states, and for America's biggest cities and counties.
The findings for 2007 include the following:
• San Jose held its spot as one of the most affluent big cities in America. With a median household income of $76,963, San Jose ranked second only to much smaller Plano, Texas.
• Santa Clara County passed Marin County in 2007 to become - among large and mid-size counties - the one with the highest median household income in California, at $84,360. Santa Clara ranked 10th among large U.S. counties, with the top household income on the West Coast.
• California enjoyed a 2.8 percent growth in median household income after inflation from 2006 to 2007, to $59,948, modestly higher than the nation's 1.9 percent inflation-adjusted growth.
A slowing economy could significantly worsen the picture for 2008.
"We're concerned that the data we're seeing today reflect a high-water mark," said Jean Ross, executive director of the California Budget Project, a think tank that focuses on low-income Californians. "The indicators for 2008 suggest that a year from now the income and poverty data will be much grimmer for California."
Deborah Reed, an economist with the Public Policy Institute of California, said even robust median incomes in cities like San Jose and San Francisco are partly a function of the high costs of living.
"People earning low amounts for doing housekeeping or landscaping or for busing dishes, they might not live in the city of San Jose, because it's a high-cost area," she said.
Mayor Chuck Reed said San Jose needs to create more manufacturing jobs, such as through its efforts to lure electric-car maker Tesla Motors.
"We know the economy has continued to grow with jobs at the top and at the bottom" of the wage scale, Reed said Tuesday. "Where we're weak is in the middle. That's one reason why we're excited about the opportunity with Tesla."
The gender gap in the United States has narrowed significantly since 1980, when women earned 60 cents for each dollar men earned.
"What's closing the gap is men's relatively flat earnings over time, and women's rising earnings," said Chuck Nelson, assistant chief of the Census Bureau's economic characteristics division. "Men's earnings now are really no different than they were in the early '70s in real terms."
Researchers say a host of sociological and economic forces have kept the paycheck gap between men and women from closing, including that women and men still cluster in different occupations, which have disparate pay rates. Women in computer and mathematical occupations earned 86 percent of their male counterparts in 2007, according to census data.
Beecham said some Silicon Valley companies such as Intuit, Hewlett-Packard and Cisco Systems are realizing that with a majority of college degrees being earned by women, their future growth is tied to attracting female talent.
"This is not just an HR issue and a diversity issue," Beecham said. "It's a revenue and a talent pool issue."
Contact Mike Swift at mswift@mercurynews.com or (408) 271-3648.