Economist Examines the Trend in the Gender Wage Gap

WIA Report
Posted on Dec 29, 2011

A study by Catherine J. Weinberger, an economist at the University of California at Santa Barbara, finds that the gender gap in earnings begins at the early stages of the careers of men and women and the gap stays constant as they get older and move up the career ladder. Weinberger examined salary data for a large group of women over a 10-year period from 1989 to 1999.

Dr. Weinberger states, “All the [economic] models say that women fall behind men in terms of salary, and, as they get older, they get farther behind. But that’s not the case. And it goes against everything I was expecting to find when I started looking at the data.”

Full Study: http://www.wiareport.com/2011/12/economist-examines-the-trend-in-the-gender-wage-gap/?utm_source=Women+In+Academia+Report&utm_campaign=26d541d552-Women_in_Academia_Report_6_14_116_13_2011&utm_medium=email

World Economic Forum Ranks U.S. 19th Among World Nations in Gender Equality

Women in Academia Report
Posted on Nov 12, 2011

The World Economic Forum has published a new report examining the gender gap in economic opportunity, educational attainment, political participation, and health in 135 countries throughout the world.
Overall, Iceland was rated as having the highest level of gender equality. Norway, Finland, Sweden, and Ireland were ranked in the top five. The United States ranked 19th in gender equality. South African, Lesotho, and the Philippines all ranked higher than the United States.
Yemen was rated as having the lowest level of gender equality. Chad, Pakistan, Mali, and Saudi Arabia were all in the bottom five.
The United States did better in educational equality than in the overall index. The U.S. was ranked first, tied with several other countries

Full Story: http://www.wiareport.com/2011/11/world-economic-forum-ranks-u-s-19th-among-world-nations-in-gender-equality/?utm_source=Women+In+Academia+Report&utm_campaign=8ab003816f-Women_in_Academia_Report_6_14_116_13_2011&utm_medium=email

AAUW Hosts Capitol Hill Briefing on Equal Pay Day

The American Association of University Women (AAUW) announced that it held a briefing in Washington, DC on the persistent pay gap between women and men. The subject of the briefing was "New Voices for Pay Equity" and the association highlighted the gender gap issues in law, engineering, academia and public relations. The association also released a publication, "The Simple Truth About the Equal Pay Gap" during its Capitol Hill briefing. For a copy of the "Simple Truth", go to: http://www.aauw.org/learn/research/simpleTruth.cfm See below for more information about the briefing, the panelists who spoke and other publications on the gender gap in their respective professions including academia: Panelists: Lisa M. Frehill, Ph.D.Director of Research, Evaluation and Policy National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering NACME Technical Report: Salaries of Engineers (PDF)NACME Research and Policy Brief April 2011: Engineering Salaries (PDF) John W. Curtis Director of Research and Public Policy American Association of University Professors Persistent Inequity: Gender and Academic Employment (PDF) Bey-Ling Sha, Ph.D., APR Associate Professor School of Journalism and Media Studies, San Diego State University Visit the Pubic Relations Society of America website for news, information, and publications about the gender pay gap in public relations. Deborah S. Froling JD Partner Arent Fox LLP Attorneys at Law Report of the Fifth Annual National Survey of Retention and Promotion of Women in Law Firms Angela Stevenson Public Health General Manager Wayne County, Michigan, Department of Public Health Health Impact Assessment (HIA) of Gender Pay Inequity (PDF) http://www.aauw.org/learn/research/simpleTruth.cfm

The Gender Gap on Service

Inside Higher Ed
January 12, 2011

For years, women in academe have complained that they are assigned a disproportionate share of departmental service duties -- work that needs to be done but that doesn't carry much weight when it's time to decide who gets promoted.
A study on the issue -- by Joya Misra, Jennifer Hickes Lundquist, Elissa Dahlberg Holmes and Stephanie Agiomavritis -- is being released today in Academe. It explores the subject through surveys of and interviews with 350 faculty members at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 2008-9 -- and finds significant gender gaps in service assignments and advancement of male and female professors. The study examines patterns related to specific service duties as well as allocation of time.

Full Story: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2011/01/12/new_study_finds_unequal_distribution_by_gender_in_academic_service_work

Affirmative Action for Men

Inside Higher Ed
March 27, 2006

When admissions officers gather to create a freshman class, there is a large elephant in the room, wrote Jennifer Delahunty Britz, in The New York Times last week: the desire to minimize gender imbalance in their classes. Britz, the admissions dean at Kenyon College, wrote that her institution gets far more applications from women than from men and that, as a result, men are "more valued applicants." Britz discussed a female candidate who was considered borderline by the Kenyon team but who -- had she been a he -- would have been admitted without hesitation.

Why is it important to favor male applicants? "Beyond the availability of dance partners for the winter formal, gender balance matters in ways both large and small on a residential college campus. Once you become decidedly female in enrollment, fewer males and, as it turns out, fewer females find your campus attractive," Britz wrote.

Full Story: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/03/27/admit

Gender Gap at Flagships

Inside Higher Ed
June 3, 2005

For about a decade now, educators have been noticing -- and worrying about -- a growing gender gap among college students, 57 percent of whom are female.
Among high-school seniors, women are more likely to have the ambition to go to college, to enroll, and then to do well, according to Education Department data. But much of the attention of those concerned about these figures has focused on subsets of the undergraduate population where the gender gap showed up most quickly and most dramatically.
Community colleges have reported severe gender gaps for years, which is consistent with studies showing that the gap in college-going rates is greatest among low-income students. The gender gap is quite large among black students, leading to significant gender gaps at historically black colleges, and in black enrollments at other institutions. And liberal arts colleges have struggled with the issue for years, with all sorts of theories about why men prefer to go elsewhere.

Full Story: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/06/03/gender

Worries Over a 2-to-1 Ratio

Inside Higher Ed
September 24, 2010

The gender gap among college undergraduates is nothing new. But at the College of Charleston, the gap is looking like more of a chasm.
With a gender ratio of about two to one – approximately 34 percent of students are male and 66 percent are female – the college is an outlier. But that ratio is not too far out of the ordinary for Charleston, say officials, who aren't fretting too much over the gap.
“I think we would like to see more male presence, but on the flip side of that, we are very strong academically,” said Donald C. Burkard, associate vice president for admissions and enrollment planning at Charleston. “Percentages don’t always tell the story.”

Full Story: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/09/24/charleston

Q&A: College gender gap has far-reaching consequences

USA Today
February 8, 2010
By Mary Beth Marklein, USA TODAY

As colleges nationwide review freshman applications over the next several weeks, many will face lopsided numbers of male and female candidates. Some colleges maintain a gender balance, but national data in recent years show a 57%-43% split favoring women, both in enrollments and graduation rates. Richard Whitmire, author of Why Boys Fail and a former USA TODAY editorial writer, talks to reporter Mary Beth Marklein about how we got there, why we should care, and what should be done about it.

Q: Why do boys fail, and how do we turn that around?
A: The reforms launched by the nation's governors more than 20 years ago to get more students college-ready had an unintended consequence: Most girls adjusted nicely to the intensified verbal skills demanded in the early grades; most boys didn't. We have to figure out a way to keep boys on track with reading and writing skills. Boys are failing because the world has gotten more verbal and they haven't.

Q&A: Michael Gurian says boys need societal nurturing, too
COLLEGE: Gender gap steady at 57% women
K-12: Few teachers are black men

Q: The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights is investigating whethercolleges discriminate against girls by giving boys a break in admissions, but you support affirmative action for male students for "just a little longer." How long is that?
A: I would like to get (college graduation rates) at a 55-45 split. We need to wait until corrections are made in elementary and high school that put boys on a better path toward college readiness. Improving verbal skills would be 90% of that task. The first measurement of success would be a drop in the number of boys in the ninth-grade "bulge" — the boys held back for another year because they are not prepared to start high school.

Full Story: http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2010-02-09-whyboysfail09_ST_N.htm

College Gender Gap Appears to be Stabilizing with One Notable Exception, American Council on Education Analysis Finds

American Council on Education
News Release
EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE
Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2010, 12:01 a.m. EST
Contact: Kellee Edmonds
kellee_edmonds@ace.nche.edu (202) 939-9368

Washington, DC (Jan. 26, 2010)—It appears the gender gap in higher education has reached a plateau for most groups except Hispanics, where the gap between men and women is on the rise, according to a new analysis by the American Council on Education (ACE).
Gender Equity in Higher Education: 2010 is a follow-up to ACE’s original 2000 study and 2006 update. For the first time, several indicators suggest that the size of the gender gap in higher education may have stabilized. The distribution of enrollment and undergraduate degrees by gender has remained consistent since about 2000, with men representing 43 percent of enrollment and earning 43 percent of bachelor’s degrees.
The only group in which the size of the female majority does not yet appear to have stabilized is Hispanics: The percentage of Hispanic undergraduates aged 24 or younger who are male has declined from 45 percent in 1999–2000 to 42 percent in 2007–08. Hispanic young men also have the lowest bachelor’s degree attainment level of any group studied, at only 10 percent. Hispanic women appear to have pulled away from their male peers since the late 1980s, increasing their bachelor's degree attainment rate while the male rate has remained flat.
The study’s author cites immigration as a key factor in the low educational performance among Hispanics, with significant differences in educational attainment rates between Hispanics born outside the United States compared with their U.S.-born peers. For example, only 51 percent of Hispanic young adults born outside the United States have completed high school, compared with 81 percent of U.S.-born Hispanics. Male immigrants, who represent one out of every three Hispanic young adults, are at a particular disadvantage. Less than half of these young men have completed high school, and only 6 percent have earned a bachelor’s degree. In contrast, Hispanic women born in the U.S. now attain a bachelor’s degree at the same rate as African-American women (18 percent).
“Raising the attainment rate of Hispanic men—and women—looms as one of the most significant challenges facing American education,” said Jacqueline E. King, assistant vice president of ACE’s Center for Policy Analysis and author of the study. “In order for the attainment rate of Hispanic young men to rise, degree production will have to outpace population growth or immigration will have to slow.”
Gender Equity in Higher Education: 2010 analyzes data from the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Department of Education.
Other Enrollment Findings:
Men aged 25 or older represent just 14 percent of all undergraduates and are outnumbered two to one by women in the same age group.
African Americans still have the largest gender gap in enrollment; 63 percent of all African American undergraduates are women.
Among African Americans and American Indians, female undergraduates aged 25 or older outnumber women aged 24 or younger.
Among traditional-age students who are financially dependent on their parents, multiple years of data consistently show that for each racial/ethnic group, the gender gap in enrollment disappears as family income rises.
Women’s share of graduate enrollment continues to increase, now reaching 60 percent overall, with tremendous variation by race/ethnicity, degree program and field of study.
Bachelor’s Degrees
Despite progress by African Americans of both genders and Hispanic women, the gaps in bachelor’s degree attainment rates between these groups and whites are larger today than they were in the 1960s and 70s.
After a spike in the mid-1970s that reflected the surge in male enrollment during the Vietnam War, the share of young white men with a bachelor’s degree declined and remained flat until the early 1990s. Today, 32 percent of white men aged 25 to 29 hold a bachelor’s degree, compared with 40 percent of white women. For both white and Hispanic young men, increases in the number of degrees earned have been outpaced by population growth, resulting in flat attainment rates.
Graduate Degrees
Women now earn as many professional and doctoral degrees as men. Women also earn the majority of master’s degrees due to their predominance in popular fields such as education and nursing. Men continue to earn the majority of master’s degrees in engineering and business administration.
“While the gender gap is important and should be addressed by educators and policy makers, these findings suggest the current female majority may be higher education’s new normal,” King added.
Gender Equity in Higher Education: 2010 (Item #312188) is available for purchase as a PDF for $20.00 via the ACE web site at www.acenet.edu/genderequity2010.
Founded in 1918, ACE is the major coordinating body for all the nation's higher education institutions, representing more than 1,600 college and university presidents, and more than 200 related associations, nationwide. It seeks to provide leadership and a unifying voice on key higher education issues and influence public policy through advocacy, research, and program initiatives.
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Latin America's worst wage gap for women and minorities? Powerhouse Brazil

Christian Science Monitor
By Andrew Downie Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
and Sara Miller Llana Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
from the October 13, 2009 edition

Men earn 30 percent more than women in Brazil, according to a new report from the Inter-American Development Bank. That gap is almost zero in Guatemala and Bolivia.

São Paulo, Brazil; and Mexico City - Mention Brazil today and adulation follows. Its fight against poverty, its growing middle class, and its emergence as an economic powerhouse are all being studied as models to be applied elsewhere. (Read our three-part "Brazil Rising" series for more.)
In one area, however, the country is far behind its peers: income equality. In a new study by the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB), released Monday, Brazil sits at the bottom of a list of 18 regional countries when it comes to how much women and minorities are paid for the same job a white man does.
Men earn 30 percent more than women of the same age and education level in Brazil. In Bolivia and Guatemala, that gap is essentially zero. Compared to Mexico, the other economic engine of the region, Brazil also stands out: Men in Mexico earn just 7 percent more than their female peers. The same gaping divide appears in Brazil when comparing wages for whites and minorities – a blow to a nation where half the population considers itself black or mixed race and prizes itself on being "color blind."
"Brazil is regarded in gender and ethnic terms as a very equalizing country. Everywhere there is inclusion. This is what Brazilians like to think about themselves," says Hugo Ñopo , an IADB economist and lead author of the study. "What the statistics show is that there are important gaps.... We think of it as an invisible wall."
Women: majority of workers in Latin America
With trade liberalization, economic growth, and urbanization, women throughout Latin America have joined the workforce in droves in recent decades, today comprising about 52 percent of all workers. But fair income distribution has not caught up. In the 18 nations studied, men earn on average 17 percent more than women, when accounting for age and educational attainment levels. In most countries, the gap is biggest among those with the least education. Women's participation in the informal sector, such as domestic work that typically is underpaid and without benefits, drives down their earning power.
But in Brazil, the gap is so high, Mr. Ñopo says, because women are absent from the highest levels of corporate hierarchies. According to Leila Linhares Barsted, executive coordinator of Cepia, a Rio woman's rights group, gender gaps have closed over the decades and women now comprise 40 percent of the nation´s workforce – an all-time high, she says. Brazil has good social policies in place, giving women 120 days of maternity leave. That's more than in the US.
But wage inequality looms large. "In spite of government campaigns for equality, there is a still a sector that discriminates, salary wise, against women," Ms. Barsted says.
While old-fashioned discrimination is to blame in part for unequal wage distribution, there are other forces at play, says Ñopo. The study revealed the same gender income gaps for those who are self-employed – data that surprised the researchers and goes against long-held views that the employer is always to blame. "It's the other way around. Self-employment is very attractive for females who have to take care of household responsibilities," Ñopo says. "Having flexibility is invaluable for them. But the result is this flexibility that they look for in the labor market comes at a price."
Brazil also at bottom for racial disparity
After Brazil, Uruguay and Nicaragua are the worst for wage inequality between genders. In Uruguay men earn 26 percent more than women and in Nicaragua, 20 percent more.
For minorities, Brazil is also is ranked at the bottom of the list at 30 percent disparity (followed by Guatemala at 24 percent and Paraguay at 22 percent).

Full Story: http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/1013/p06s07-woam.html

Gender Gap in Schooling Measures Pendulum's Motion

Womensenews.org
Run Date: 10/04/09
By Bijoyeta Das
WeNews correspondent

Young U.S. women are finishing high school, attending college and earning degrees at higher rates than men. A boys' educational crisis (of arguable extent), two-income families and rising divorce rates help explain the widening gaps, onlookers say.

BOSTON (WOMENSENEWS)--She is excited to leave the nest.
"College is a must. No questions," said Taylyse Wornum, 18. She entered the University of Massachusetts at Amherst this fall as a freshman to study communications.
Young women like Wornum are increasingly outpacing men in the successful completion of high school and college enrollment.
Among Boston public high school 2007 graduates, 153 young women attended college for every 100 men, according to a July study by the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University, which prepared the report for the Boston Private Industry Council. Among those attending four-year colleges, the gap was even wider: 166 women for every 100 men.
Across the country, in every race-gender group, more women get degrees than men, said Andrew Sum, lead author of the study and director of the Center for Labor Market Studies. "That's true for every degree level: associate, bachelor's and master's."
When it comes to Ph.D.s, there is almost parity.
Jennifer Millien, 21, a public relations student at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, North Adams, said she is proud of the inroads women are making in education and is happy to be entering a work force that seems to be in favor of women. "But, despite all the statistics showing so many women pursuing careers, women continue to earn less than men. It is kind of weird."

Full Story: http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/4160/context/cover/

GAO Issues Report On EEOC and OFCCP Pay Discrimination Enforcement

On August 11, 2008, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a report critical of the enforcement of pay discrimination laws by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the Department of Labor's Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP). The report entitled, "Women's Earnings: Federal Agencies Should Better Monitor Their Performance in Enforcing Anti-Discrimination Laws," analyzed the equal employment opportunity laws enforced by the EEOC and OFCCP that are intended to prohibit discrimination on the basis of compensation, among other prohibited bases. Noting that in 2000, the gender wage gap was 80 percent, and that a portion of that gap was due to discrimination, GAO examined "(1) how EEOC enforces laws addressing gender pay disparities among private sector employers and provides outreach and what is known about its performance, and (2) how Labor enforces laws addressing gender pay disparities among federal contractors and provides outreach and what is known about its performance." http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-08-799

As for EEOC, GAO concluded: "EEOC does not monitor gender pay enforcement efforts under another statute that covers multiple discrimination topics and under which more than half of gender pay charges are filed. As a result, EEOC does not make complete use of available information to help identify trends related to gender pay cases, set agency priorities, or understand how its gender pay enforcement efforts are contributing to overall performance goals relative to other efforts." Similarly, regarding OFCCP, the GAO made the following observations, among others: "[R]egulations require contractors to conduct a self-evaluation of their compensation systems to identify and address gender pay disparities. However, OFCCP's guidance on this is found in different source documents that are not cross-referenced, and its data system lacks a unique code to help the agency easily determine the extent to which contractors are complying with the self-evaluation requirement."

The GAO's recommendations are as follows:

Recommendations for Executive Action
Recommendation: To gauge how well EEOC is carrying out its responsibilities regarding gender pay discrimination, the Chair of the EEOC should devise a cost-effective method to improve its ability to monitor the performance of its gender pay enforcement efforts relative to other areas, using information already captured in its databases and supplementing information already reported.Agency Affected: Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Status: In process Comments: When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
Recommendation: To strengthen OFCCP's enforcement and outreach efforts and gauge the performance of those efforts, the Secretary of Labor should direct the Director of OFCCP to evaluate the Westat mathematical model and incorporate lessons learned from the prior model to ensure contractors are appropriately being selected for compliance evaluations and to maximize limited enforcement resources.Agency Affected: Department of Labor Status: In process Comments: When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
Recommendation: To strengthen OFCCP's enforcement and outreach efforts and gauge the performance of those efforts, the Secretary of Labor should direct the Director of OFCCP to improve oversight of compliance evaluations for contractors by establishing linkages between relevant and current guidance on conducting compensation self-evaluations and devising a unique violation code to document any non-compliance with the compensation self evaluation requirement.Agency Affected: Department of Labor Status: In process Comments: When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
Recommendation: To strengthen OFCCP's enforcement and outreach efforts and gauge the performance of those efforts, the Secretary of Labor should direct the Director of OFCCP to ensure the planned new data system incorporates standardized data entry instructions and adequate internal controls to screen for erroneous, inconsistent, or missing data, and ensures violation codes are correctly entered.Agency Affected: Department of Labor Status: In process Comments: When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
Recommendation: To strengthen OFCCP's enforcement and outreach efforts and gauge the performance of those efforts, the Secretary of Labor should direct the Director of OFCCP to develop a cost-effective means for monitoring performance of gender pay enforcement efforts relative to other areas, using information generally already captured in existing databases, once determined reliable.Agency Affected: Department of Labor Status: In process Comments: When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
Recommendation: To strengthen OFCCP's enforcement and outreach efforts and gauge the performance of those efforts, the Secretary of Labor should direct the Director of OFCCP to devise a method for systematically collecting feedback from recipients of outreach and technical assistance and using this information to measure and monitor outreach performance.Agency Affected: Department of Labor Status: In process Comments: When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

To read the entire report, go to: http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d08799.pdf

Gender Wage Gap One Cent Closer; Household Income Rises, Poverty Rate Unchanged

US Census Bureau News
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
TUESDAY, AUG. 26, 2008, 10:10 A.M. EDT

Household Income Rises, Poverty Rate Unchanged, Number of Uninsured Down
Real median household income in the United States climbed 1.3 percent between 2006 and 2007, reaching $50,233, according to a report released today by the U.S. Census Bureau. This is the third annual increase in real median household income.
Meanwhile, the nation’s official poverty rate in 2007 was 12.5 percent, not statistically different from 2006. There were 37.3 million people in poverty in 2007, up from 36.5 million in 2006. The number of people without health insurance coverage declined from 47 million (15.8 percent) in 2006 to 45.7 million (15.3 percent) in 2007.
These findings are contained in the report Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2007 [PDF]. The data were compiled from information collected in the 2008 Current Population Survey (CPS) Annual Social and Economic Supplement (ASEC). Also released today were income, poverty and earnings data from the 2007 American Community Survey (ACS) for all states and congressional districts, as well as for metropolitan areas, counties, cities and American Indian/Alaska Native areas of 65,000 population or more.
Current Population Survey (Primarily the source of national-level statistics)
The 2008 Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement (CPS ASEC) reveals the following results for the nation:
Income
Race and Hispanic Origin (Race data refer to people reporting a single race only. Hispanics can be of any race.)
Real median income (adjusted for inflation) for black and non-Hispanic white households rose between 2006 and 2007, representing the first measured real increase in annual household income for each group since 1999.
Real median household income remained statistically unchanged for Asians and Hispanics.
Among the race groups and Hispanics, black households had the lowest median income in 2007 ($33,916). This compares to the median of $54,920 for non-Hispanic white households. Asian households had the highest median income ($66,103). The median income for Hispanic households was $38,679.
Regions
Between 2006 and 2007, real median household income rose in the Midwest ($50,277) and the South ($46,186), declined in the Northeast ($52,274) and remained statistically unchanged in the West ($54,138).
Nativity
Real median income rose for native-born households for the second year, up 1.0 percent from 2006, to $50,946. For foreign-born households whose householder was not a U.S. citizen, income dropped by 7.3 percent to $37,637. For households maintained by a naturalized U.S. citizen, median income remained statistically unchanged at $52,092.
Earnings
In 2007, the ratio of earnings of women who worked full time, year-round was 78 percent of that for corresponding men. The real median earnings of men who worked full time, year-round climbed between 2006 and 2007, from $43,460 to $45,113. For women, the corresponding increase was from $33,437 to $35,102. These increases in earnings follow three years of annual decline in real earnings for both men and women.
Income Inequality
Income inequality decreased between 2006 and 2007, as measured by shares of aggregate household income by quintiles and the Gini index. The share of aggregate income received by households in the top fifth of the income distribution declined, while the shares for the third and fourth quintiles increased. Meanwhile, the Gini index declined from 0.470 to 0.463, moving closer to 0, which represents perfect income equality (1 represents perfect inequality). [To view the entire Census Bureau release, go to: http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/income_wealth/012528.html ]

50 More Years of Women Making Less Money Than Men?

Alternet
By Jennifer Waldref, Women's eNews
Posted on July 10, 2008,
Printed on July 10, 2008http://www.alternet.org/story/90853/

Research shows pay discrimination isn't going anywhere soon. Neither are promotion barriers, sexual harassment or bias against mothers.

PORTLAND, Ore. -- With two decades of experience under her belt, Lindsay Hall was confident she was a strong candidate for a promotion within the Bonneville Power Administration, a federal agency in Oregon where she works as a wildlife biologist.
But after agency "subject matter experts" reviewed all candidates who received the highest ranking from the agency personnel department, Hall -- who asked that her name be changed because she still works for the government -- found herself cut from the applicant pool. Two candidates, both male, were interviewed, and the one who was offered the job had about five years' experience, compared to Hall's 20.
It was not the first time she was passed over for a promotion in favor of a male applicant with less time in the field. Six years earlier, Hall and another woman both applied for an agency position that dealt with hydrosystem policy on the Columbia River's network of power-generating dams. Hall had policy experience, and the other woman had done her master's thesis on the Columbia River hydrosystem. But a less experienced man with a social science degree was hired.
After the second job slipped away, Hall filed a "pre-grievance" with the agency, providing her access to confidential personnel documents. She discovered that the "subject matter experts" ranked her a couple of points below the man who got the job despite her greater experience. They drew what she describes as an "arbitrary line" between her name and his and didn't interview anyone below it.
"When it happens to you, it doesn't take but once or twice and you start to become mistrustful," said Hall. "It's very demoralizing. You end up shifting your focus away from work as a survival tactic." [To read the entire story, go to: http://www.alternet.org/reproductivejustice/90853/ ]