“Women now earn 76 cents for every dollar men earn,” explains Katica Roy, CEO of Pipeline. “In terms of women’s labor force participation rates, we are now back to 1988 levels. In terms of pay equity, we are back to 1998 rates. Once we recuperate these decades of lost progress, we will still be another 257 years away from achieving economic intersectional gender equity.”
This is “impacting equality levels overall and taking steps backward in progress toward pay equity,” Jansen adds. “While we don’t have an exact numerical picture of this yet, as the pandemic is not over, some economists believe the decline in employment for women will reduce women’s earnings enough to widen the pay gap by up to five percent,” she continues. Five. Percent.
“Although the current pay gap projections may seem grim, it does not mean it has to be our reality,” Jansen says, encouragingly. But it will take a lot of work and a lot of cooperation.