According to recent government data and reported by Pew Research, women aged 25-34 are nearing wage parity with men of the same age.
As the chart to the right shows, women’s hourly earnings were two-thirds (67%) of men’s in 1980 but have steadily improved and reached 93% of men’s in 2012.
According to Pew, the reasons millennial women are catching up to men are:
... younger women have outpaced men in college-going and college graduation, which have opened doors to higher-paying jobs, often in male-dominated fields.
In addition, larger forces such as globalization and weakened unions disproportionately have hurt some types of jobs mainly held by men.
We expect the wage gap to continue to close for two key reasons. First, younger women are out performing younger men at every level of education - and especially in college. This will lead to greater wage parity.
And second, the greatest wage disparity exists in older cohorts and especially people aged 55 and older. As this group exits the workforce, the wage gap will close.
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