Research measures gender wage gap

Staffing and recruiting professionals, as experts in hiring practices, may already know the results of a new earnings report from Pew Research Center. According to the agency, women earned 84 cents for every $1 made by men in 2012. Depending on the industry or sectors in which a recruiting and staffing professional specializes, this figure could be surprising or feel right on target.

The earnings figure Pew found is slightly higher than the 81 cents to every dollar figure reported by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. One reason for the earning discrepancy is that the Pew study estimated the gender wage gap in terms of hourly wages, while the government research took account of weekly earnings. Simply put, the differences in income are the result of a difference in hours.

The differences in reading wage statistics

According to the Pew study, women are twice as likely as men (26 percent versus 13 percent) to work part time. This naturally would have an overall impact on the earnings of women in general, if you compared the weekly wages of both genders. To reduce the skew, the government study only used figures from full-time workers, those who work at least 35 hours a week.

The differences in earnings is said to somewhat be derived from the break most women take in the middle of their careers to raise children. However, figures that dissect earnings for women and men throughout the progression in their careers show that even at the beginning of their careers, when women are right out of college, there is a discrepancy.

How millennial women react to the news

Among workers between the ages of 25 to 34, women’s hourly earnings last year were 93 percent of those of men. The LA Times reported that this wage gap is even more severe considering that 38 percent of women between 25 and 32 have a bachelor’s degree – more than the 31 percent of men of the same age group.

“Recent cohorts of young women have fallen further behind their same-aged male counterparts as they have aged and dealt with the responsibilities of parenthood and family,” Pew researchers wrote. “For women, marriage and motherhood are both associated with less time spent on paid work-related activities.”

Many of the women interviewed in the study and by various news networks found that there is still much to be desired for equality in the workplace. Positive movements have certainly been made, but some view that there is still more to be done to ensure women and men have the opportunity to earn equal wages for the same work.

Possible ways staffing and recruiting professionals can help narrow the earnings gap

While staffing and recruiting professionals are unable to decide the income men and women receive for a position, they can better prepare candidates for salary negotiations. Experts have argued that the wage gap is partially the fault of women being unable to effectively negotiate higher wages, while men are often more likely to demand higher compensation in initial meetings. By evaluating candidates from staffing software and recruiting software and providing negotiation technique tips that will highlight an individual’s talents, a recruiter could help his or her client achieve a better salary.

This will hopefully help reduce the wage gap that still plagues female and male relations in the working world. Every little bit to help bring equality to the workplace can help, and benefiting clients is the real win for recruiting professionals.