By: Jada Solomon

The gender pay gap also contributes with age. According to The Simple Truth about the Gender Pay Gap by Kevin Miller; In 2016,full-time workers ages 20–24, women were paid 96 percent of what men were paid on a weekly basis. Differences among older workers are considerably larger than differences among younger workers. This could be due to experience and qualifications. However, the median earnings for women grow more slowly than median earnings for men. For example, women by the ages of 25-54 are paid 78-89 percent of what men made.   

Education and qualifications are key for anyone getting a job,increase in salary or position. Moreover, women are getting more college degrees but men still earn more. According to National Center for Education Statistics, women make up more than 56% of colleges nationwide. In fact, at today’s rate on average a woman with a bachelor degree earns the same as a man with an associates degree. However, this could be due to the different industries and fields. In the University of California for example are disproportionately concentrated in fields that pay their graduates less like social sciences,arts ,and humanities. Whereas men are more in engineering, computer science, and business majors.

According to recent studies, the #1 factor for the gender wage gap is a penalty for childcare or motherhood.According to Henrik Kleven, an economist at Princeton University. Kleven finds a “decline in women’s earnings after the birth of their first child”. However, there is no comparable salary drop for men. As a result, women end up earning 20 percent less than their male colleagues throughout career. On the other hand, women that don’t have children have earnings that are quite similar to men’s salaries. Whereas mothers experience a significant wage gap.