【Watch Brooklyn Nine】
The Watch Brooklyn Ninegender pay gap in the United States starts early — with what you choose as your college major.
Majors that tend to lead to higher-paying jobs are dominated by male college students and majors that feed into lower-paying jobs are dominated by women, Glassdoor found in a new report.
"Because men and women systematically sort into different college majors, they experience different early career paths, which pay differently," Glassdoor chief economist Andrew Chamberlain and senior data analyst Jyotsna Jayaraman wrote in their report. "These pay differences in turn reveal themselves as major contributors to the well-documented gap between male and female pay in the labor market."
SEE ALSO: Here's how women are represented (or not) in LinkedIn's highest-paying jobsThe well-documented gap shows that women earn just over 80 cents for every man's dollar, with the gap increasing significantly for women of color.
In companies' reports on equal pay, they tend to point out that the gender pay gap narrows or almost disappears when it's adjusted — women and men in the exact same jobs, especially early in their careers, earn about equal salaries. But the unadjusted pay gap, caused by men being awarded higher-paying roles and women working in lower-paying jobs, persists across majors and industries, as Glassdoor found.
The jobs site analyzed nearly 47,000 resumes uploaded to its platform to find these results. Across college majors, men earned $56,957 per year to women's $50,426 per year. That's a pay gap of 11.5 percent.
"Solutions to today’s remaining gender pay gap must go beyond examining current pay practices among employers."
Of the 10 college majors that lead to the highest-paying jobs in the first five years after graduation, nine were dominated by men. Those majors were six engineering degrees, plus information technology, management information systems, statistics, and the lone women-dominated degree, nursing.
Of the 10 lowest-paying college majors, six were dominated by women. Those majors were healthcare administration, social work, education, liberal arts, psychology, and biology. Men made up more students in the low-paying criminal justice, kinesiology, and music fields. The last low-paying major, exercise science, was about equal in its gender divide.
It's not enough to say that women should choose majors that lead to higher-paying jobs. Part of the problem is that professions where women make up most of the workforce — sometimes called "pink collar" jobs — have been undervalued and underpaid. Over 85 percent of social work majors were women and 66 percent of education majors were women, Glassdoor found. Women's choices of college majors are affected by their pre-college preparation, gender norms, and other societal factors besides just their own individual interests.
SEE ALSO: Glassdoor has an equation to help figure out your own company's wage gapAnd choosing a major that leads to a higher-paying field doesn't insulate women from the wage gap. After graduation, women biology majors found jobs as lab technicians, pharmacy technicians, and sales associates, according to Glassdoor. Male biology majors were employed as lab technicians or higher-paid data analysts and managers. The majors with the biggest wage gaps for their male and female students were healthcare administration and mathematics.
"Our findings suggest that solutions to today’s remaining gender pay gap must go beyond examining current pay practices among employers," Chamberlain and Jayaraman wrote. "Instead, they must also address pipeline issues — including the choice of college major — that help drive men and women into different career paths and pay."
Featured Video For You
This typewriter-inspired keyboard will have you kickin' it old school
Search
Categories
Latest Posts
'The Last of Us' Season 2, episode 4: Why Ellie sings 'Take on Me'
2025-06-26 07:37Why you can't get a Sweetgreen salad on Thursday in D.C.
2025-06-26 06:35'The Last of Us' Season 2, episode 5: The spores are here!
2025-06-26 05:35Popular Posts
Google Pixel Buds Pro 2: $40 off at Amazon
2025-06-26 06:52Abortion and same
2025-06-26 06:22Facebook launches service to monitor election
2025-06-26 06:0810 Tech Predictions for 2017
2025-06-26 05:22Featured Posts
Put Me In, Coach!
2025-06-26 07:42Now you can get magically stupefied in a 'Harry Potter'
2025-06-26 07:00Why you can't get a Sweetgreen salad on Thursday in D.C.
2025-06-26 06:47Popular Articles
Google Pixel Buds Pro 2: $40 off at Amazon
2025-06-26 07:15Here's why you shouldn't download that viral celebrity lookalike app
2025-06-26 07:00Inside the Murky Process of Getting Games on Steam
2025-06-26 06:17Newsletter
Subscribe to our newsletter for the latest updates.
Comments (265)
Habit Information Network
How to Squeeze the Most Out of Your iPhone's Battery
2025-06-26 07:12Pursuit Information Network
'Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker' trailer breakdown: Big questions, ugly crying
2025-06-26 07:01Elite Information Network
Twitter is working on a policy to fight deepfakes and it wants users' help
2025-06-26 06:30Wisdom Information Network
'Castle Rock' Season 2 delivers gripping, Stephen King–worthy horror
2025-06-26 05:59Heat Information Network
'The Last of Us' Season 2, episode 5: The spores are here!
2025-06-26 05:38