According to Reuters, and more specifically to Ross Kerber, even when women make it to the top ranks of the US corporations, they still persistently face a wage gap.
In 2019, the highest paid woman earned 84.6 percent of what her male counterparts did. This is according to the Russell 3000 index, which shows the difference compared to the 2015 index - women earned 81.5 percent of what the male counterparts did. Their hope is that the 2020 disclosures would prove that the wage gap is narrowing.
This wage gap, according to sources also comes from women being put in lower positions in companies. this could even out if educated and well-taught women are put in higher positions and maintain a more diverse pool. Cook points out that companies cannot just solve the top ranks and have to look at companies as a whole.
This analysis goes from 2015 to 2019 and looks at 2384 companies. Over the span of these years, the executive positions held by women has risen by 3% and the companies have 12% more women at their top ranks. Also, the percent earned by women to each dollar earned by men has risen by 2%.
Thanks to protests and COVID-19, gender and race-based pay difference has received more attention.
A report from the National Women's Law Center points out that 2.3 women have left the workforce since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, leaving their participation rate at 57%. This is the lowest participation rate that they have reached since the year of 1988.
They have gained some advantage in corporate boardrooms with their participation rate at 23%.
Morningstar's Cook also did not forget to mention that high-ranked companies like Amazon.com and State Street Corp do not have women listed among top-paid executives.
As a comment to that report, Amazon came out to say that women earn the same as men performing the same jobs. They also pointed out that they are trying to narrow the wage gap, State Street continues to stay "focused on representation of women and other underrepresented groups particularly in senior, higher paying roles demonstrated by women comprising 29% of our management committee and 4 of our 11 Directors."
Comments