[Music] as women's History Month draws to a close we want to focus today's money watch on the gender pay Gap it's barely improved over the last 20 years just look at these numbers in 2002 women earned on average 80 percent of what men earned and in 2022 20 years later women still only earned 82 percent as much as men it's even worse for women of color data research from the Pew Research Center showed that black women earned 70 percent as much as white men in 2022 and Latino women earned 65 percent as much CBS News
business analyst Jill Schlesinger joins us right now good morning how you doing I'm doing well all right so um more women graduate from college than men same goes for law school and about half of medical school graduates are women so why hasn't this um gender gap improved yeah it's a it's a curious combination of bad factors at first we were thinking maybe it's because women tend to dominate low-paying feels make Child Care Home Health Care and then we started to look at other professions and we found across many professions most professions if you compare men
and women men still make more money regardless of the profession so that's really curious doing the same job doing the exact same job so then there's one level deeper that I think is quite fascinating it looks at Parenthood now think about it women have the baby they take themselves out of the labor force often when they come back in they are earning less now let's look at a father there is something that's called the fatherhood premium a father who's in the workforce has presumably someone helping at home tends to work more and longer than men
who don't have children so it's as if the men who have kids make more money than men without kids women who have kids make less money than anybody yeah the men aren't penalized for having children no they're actually it's like one is rewarded yeah men and then women it's held against them exactly right and I think that there's a lot of implicit and explicit bias but I think that there's this kind combination of factors that are playing here that are leaving this Gap persistently wide yeah I mean there's a story in the news right now
with Sharon Stone who says that she was paid five hundred thousand dollars for uh Basic Instinct Michael Douglas was paid 14 million now listen I know she she says like I was new he was a big star but that still seems like a gross significant yeah that's a significant difference well I'll tell you in some sectors where it really is glaring is that we see a sector like nursing a lot of nurses used to be that field used to be dominated by women now more and more men have come in well guess what The Men
Who come in seem to be making more than the women who've been there so there is a gap and it persists and we have got to address go ahead we know this exists generally but people are actually wondering where they work is this happening they're looking at their co-workers and wondering what's happening I remember I worked at a magazine once but for some reason the printer started shooting out everybody's salary it was like a big spreadsheet and we all gathered around and then we looked over at Barnett where our Baron we were like Barrett yeah
you're doing about twenty thousand dollars better than everybody uh so but should people just be talking about it more not waiting for the printer error well I think that the transparency argument is really a good one now remember we have a lot of states that have started to say you've got to put a range out for the jobs that you're hiring for right and I think this is good news employers get really freaked out about this they don't want to do it there's pushback it actually improves morale because it makes you feel like if the
system is fair and I know what it is I work harder but when we talk about having transparency I think a lot of it has to do with people talking with one another this is very helpful for women to do you go out and you say okay I'm Jill I'm working at an organization I want to talk to another friend maybe not doing the exact same thing as me but getting some guidance what are you making what are your conversations like if this is completely Oddball to you Gail you and I are from a generation
we didn't talk about this I was raised not that it was very impolite and you didn't ask your co-worker what do you make you do it more casually I'm trying to find a way to increase my pay what is the range that's here how can I get this conversation going maybe going to a mentor maybe to go someone else in the organization that's really been looking after you it makes it so important because this kind of transparency leads to better outcomes and by the way the system can't just be where you're only talking to women
you've got to go across and talk to the other genders and find out who's there don't be protective oh and by the way many organizations frown on this if you talk to many people in organizations they'll say my boss told me I was getting a raise but I shouldn't tell anybody else it's the unwritten rules and by the way how did that happen too that is illegal it is perfectly legal for everybody to share their information bosses and managers please you should encourage that because you want a fair system as well super interesting you're the
best I appreciate you we can talk all day about this oh yes
