How big a blow has the COVID-19 pandemic been for working women in the United States?
Although women who lost or left their jobs at the height of the crisis have largely returned to the job market, a recent study highlights the price many have paid for taking a step back: by 2023, the gap The wage gap between men and women working full time widened year over year for the first time in 20 years, according to an annual report from the United States Census Bureau.
Women working full time earned 83 cents on the dollar compared to men in 2023, up from a high of 84 cents in 2022. The Census Bureau said it was the first statistically significant widening of the ratio since 2003.
Economists trying to make sense of the data say it reflects a complicated moment during the job market’s disjointed recovery from the pandemic, when many women finally returned to full-time work, particularly in hard-hit low-wage sectors where they are over-represented, such as hospitality, social work and care.
The news isn’t all bad: Wages rose for all workers last year, but faster for men. And while the pay gap between men and women has increased, it is at the same level as in 2019 before the pandemic.
SJ Glynn, the Labor Department’s chief economist, said it was too early to tell whether 2023 was an accident or the start of a worrying new trend in the gender wage gap. But she argued that even a return to the pre-pandemic status quo is a reminder of how far behind women were to begin with and shows how the pandemic has slowed the march toward gender equality.
If the pay gap hits a historic low in 2022, it may be a “false narrowing” because so many low-wage women have been pushed out of full-time jobs by the pandemic, which that has driven up the average median income for women, noted Noreen Farrell, executive director of Equal Rights Advocates and president of Equal Pay Today, a coalition of groups that advocate for gender equality in the workplace.
The massive arrival of Hispanic women on the job market
Hispanic women in particular illustrate the complexity of this period. They are the only demographic group of women overall whose wage gap narrowed slightly between 2022 and 2023 compared to white men working full time, according to Census Bureau data analyzed by both the National Women’s Law Center and the National Partnership for Women and Families. For black and Asian women, the pay gap has widened, and for white women, it has remained the same.
Despite a slightly faster increase in their wages than for other women, Hispanic women nevertheless remain among the lowest paid workers, with a median full-time income of $43,880, compared to $50,470 for black women, 60 $450 for white women and $75,950 for white men. As a result, their rapid entry into the full-time workforce in 2023 has contributed to slowing median wage gains for women in general, noted Liana Fox, deputy chief of the Bureau’s Social, Economic and Housing Statistics Division. of the census.
