Do Women in the U.S. Still Earn Less than Men?

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An alum who’s an ILR professor emerita weighs in on the gender pay gap—how it has narrowed, and why it persists

By Beth Saulnier

Economist Francine Blau ’66 has been studying the gender pay gap for more than half a century—starting with the dissertation on the subject she completed at Harvard in the mid-1970s. Now a Frances Perkins Professor with emerita status in ILR—her undergrad alma mater—she remains a leading voice on the topic, including appearances in major media like NPR’s “The Indicator from Planet Money.”

And Blau literally wrote the book on the subject. The Economics of Women, Men, and Work, coauthored with the University of Missouri’s Anne Winkler and originally published in 1986, is now in its ninth edition with Oxford University Press.

Just in time for Women’s History Month, we asked Blau to weigh in on how equal—or unequal—compensation is in 2025.

Now we’re in the low 80%—and that’s not 100%, but it’s a big gain. And at the same time, there have been enormous changes in women’s roles.

What are some of those changes?

Back in 1975, it was not a given that married women—and especially moms of young children—would work outside the home. It was still unusual, and now it’s the norm.

And when I started out, women were scarce in management. There were even articles written that women couldn’t successfully manage male employees; men would never accept it. And now, women are almost as well represented as men—though as you move up the hierarchy, women get scarcer.

When I started out, women—on average, working full time, year round—earned about 60% of what men earned. Now we’re in the low 80%—and that’s not 100%, but it’s a big gain.

Women doctors and lawyers were rare, and now they’re quite common. So we’ve made enormous progress, but there are areas that still need work—and I don’t want to underplay them, or be complacent.

Could you talk about the reasons why women and men’s pay is still unequal?

One interesting thing is that some factors that used to be important aren’t now.

Back in, say, 1980, women on average had shorter work histories than men, and that reflected their tendency to be more loosely attached to the labor force—to move in and out depending on opportunities or family demands. Now, that experience gap between men and women has almost disappeared.

In 1980, men were more likely to graduate from college than women; now, women are more likely to graduate.

So why does the pay gap persist?

In a study I did with ILR colleague Lawrence Kahn, we found that despite gains like women moving into law, medicine, management, and veterinary science, occupational differences between men and women are still quite pronounced.

Women are more likely to be in administrative support or service jobs, and in traditionally female professions like teaching and nursing. Men are more likely to be in blue-collar occupations, including some fairly well-paid craft and skilled jobs, and in STEM [science, technology, engineering, and math] occupations.

 Despite gains like women moving into law, medicine, management, and veterinary science, occupational differences between men and women are still quite pronounced.

Another big factor is that men and women tend to work in different industries. Women are very concentrated in education and health, for example, and men are more likely to be in manufacturing, construction, transportation, and utilities.

You mentioned that at the highest levels, there’s still a lot of disparity. Could you talk about that?

It’s what we’ve been calling, for many years now, the “glass ceiling.” And on the plus side, it has more cracks: we have a handful of women CEOs, et cetera.

There are a lot more women at lower levels of management—but in virtually every high-level area, as you go up, representation of women goes down.

Although we’ve made a lot of progress in academia, for example, there are many more women assistant professors than associates, and even fewer full professors. Or we could look at the political system: we still have not had a woman president, and women are underrepresented in Congress and as governors.

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Research has also found that for this reason, women negotiating can elicit negative responses.

So … you’re damned if you do, and damned if you don’t?

I think that’s the perfect way to put it.

Women, unfortunately, are often walking a tightrope. If a woman is assertive, they say, “She’s pushy; she’s aggressive.” But if a man acts the same way: “He’s a go-getter!”

So women are constantly walking this line—but if they don’t act assertively or aggressively, they won’t get anywhere.

On “The Indicator,” you talked about a figure of 8%—that it represents the portion of the pay gap that can’t be ascribed to the kinds of employment differences we’ve discussed. Can you elaborate?

After we control for everything we could possibly control for in our statistical analysis, including occupation and industry, women still earn 8% less than men. So, there’s a portion of the gap we can’t explain—what we call a “residual.”

Women, unfortunately, are often walking a tightrope. If a woman is assertive, they say, 'She’s pushy; she’s aggressive.' But if a man acts the same way: 'He’s a go-getter!'

We can’t assume this residual is entirely due to discrimination; it may reflect, in part, factors like negotiating, which our analysis can’t take into account. But we’ve looked into it, and, based in part on other sources of evidence, we think a significant component does reflect discrimination.

It might not be overt; it could even be subconscious. You’d think it would be unlikely today that someone would say, right out, “I’m not going to hire you because you’re a woman”—but it could still be operating.

What has it been like to research gaps in women’s wages over the past half-century, while actually being a working woman yourself?

It was controversial when I came into the field. Economists are disproportionately male, and women in general were looked at a little suspiciously—and a woman studying gender was looked at even more suspiciously. “Is she an ideologue?”

I’ve always felt that I have to establish my bona fides as an objective researcher, and I wrote something a very long time ago: “If the cause is just, the truth can’t hurt it.”

Have you personally encountered pay discrimination?

It was really ironic. When I was working on my dissertation at Harvard, I was a lecturer at Trinity College in Hartford, CT. I had been there a year, and I found out that a newly hired male colleague was getting a higher salary.

I wrote something a very long time ago: 'If the cause is just, the truth can’t hurt it.'

I was doubly upset, because one of the points I made in my dissertation was that when men and women are in exactly the same job, working side by side, the pay gap actually tends to be quite small.

Here, not only was I getting paid less, but it was countering my theory! [She laughs.] In any case, in that particular example—as soon as I mentioned it, it was fixed.

Finally, do you have any words of wisdom for today’s women workers?

Forewarned is forearmed. The hardest thing is when you’re blindsided. So I hope the information that people get from me doesn’t make them feel helpless, or that it’s futile.

I think it’s the opposite: knowing what might happen helps you prevent it.

Top: Illustration by Ashley Osburn / Cornell University. Other images provided.

Published March 4, 2025

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