Will Women Get Bigger Paychecks Than Men?

Will the earnings of women surpass those of their male counterparts? “Their education is greater, they complete their education more, they get better grades in school than men, and the health of women is considerably greater than men,” said Nobel laureate Gary Becker. “You take any of these statistics and women are better than men.”

Becker, University Professor of Economics and of Sociology, shared statistics with the student-led Graduate Women in Business group during its spring luncheon at Gleacher Center on May 26.

Discrimination still exists and women traditionally provide more child care, Becker said. “When a child gets sick, the mother is more likely to take off work,” he said. “I’m not going to criticize that because it may be good in many other dimensions, but it hurts the earnings of women. I think there is a battle going on between these two forces that raise and lower the earnings of women relative to those of men. Maybe we’ll get the answer in 20 years.”

When Becker began studying the role of women in the American economy in the 1960s, it was primarily lower-educated women who worked outside the home while their more-educated counterparts raised children. More than 40 years later, more educated women are not only more likely to work, but are more likely to work full time than less educated women, he said.

“Now it’s very different and the differences are sizable,” Becker said. “This is a very remarkable change that has occurred in the last 40 years. In fact, there has been a major revolution in the role of women in the economy during this time period.”

Up until 1960, few women worked, and those who did earned low pay, he said. Most worked as homemakers. Women who worked outside the home did so mainly part time and were more likely to be less educated than those who did not work, he said. “The less educated women worked mainly because, financially, they had to work,” Becker said. Women also went to college less than men and were less likely to finish college, he said.

The three most important reasons women did not work were high birth rates, a more manufacturing- and agricultural-oriented economy, and discrimination, he said. “There’s no doubt that women’s entry into certain types of occupations was made more difficult by discrimination,” Becker said. “Getting into law school or medical school was very difficult for women until relatively recent decades. Getting managerial positions was difficult. It’s a problem today still, but was much more difficult in the past.”

Over the past 25 years, many of these factors changed, he said. Fertility dropped sharply, the Baby Boom peaked in 1960, more women than men completed high school, and by the 1980s, more women than men finished college, Becker said. “Traditionally, women dropped out of college in much larger numbers than men,” he said. “That’s a major reversal. Today men drop out in much larger numbers than women.”

Second-year student Rachel Williamson, vice president of finance for Graduate Women in Business, said she appreciated hearing Becker emphasize that people should not undervalue the amount of work women do in their households. “He said the average woman who works full time and has a family works 80 hours a week,” Williamson said. “You hear men saying, ‘I worked 80 hours this week.’ Well, women work 80 hours most weeks.”

—Phil Rockrohr