Women in STEM — Payment Equality in IT
By Dr. Novadean Watson-Stone
Program Director, Information Technology at American Public University
In 1971, when the late Congresswoman Bella Abzug designated August 26 as “Women’s Equality Day,” she passionately championed the efforts of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony to not only give women the right to vote and own property, but to also break the glass ceiling of inequality in the workplace and other facets of society. Abzug contended, “The test for whether or not you can hold a job should not be the arrangement of your chromosomes.”
Unfortunately, the rally for equal opportunity and earnings for women continues in the 21st century. According to the Pew Research Center 2013 survey and analysis of census data, today’s young women are entering their careers more educated than their male colleagues. That’s good news; women are getting educated and earning more income. Yet, they are not necessarily getting equal pay for equal work when compared to men. The Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR) noted in its April 2015 Fact Sheet, “Women’s median earnings are lower than men’s in nearly all occupations, whether they work in occupations predominantly done by women, occupations predominantly done by men, or occupations with a more even mix of men and women.”
There are variations in women’s wages when compared to men in different industries. The 2012 research study conducted by Corbett and Hill entitled, “Graduating to a Pay Gap: The Earnings of Women and Men One Year after College Graduation,” found that women employed in industries such as education and social sciences typically earned about 11% less than men in the same industry — unlike women in the business and management industry, who earned 14% less and women in the sales industry, who earned 23% less. Overall, Corbett and Hill found that while women earned more money in the engineering, technology and social-sciences industries, they still made between 23% and 12% less than their male counterpart; however, women who worked in the health care and education industries realized closer earning alignment with men. The IWPR reinforced that of the 116 occupations studied, gender wage gap existed with the exception of the health practitioner support technologists and technicians field.
Clearly there is pay inequality for women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) as in most occupations. For instance, women earned 83.9% of men’s salary as software developers, applications, and systems software. They earned 82% of men’s compensation in engineering and engineering technology and 81% in computer and information sciences.
Ironically, young women, particularly millennials , are very cognizant of these earning differences as Pew Research Center further noted, “…young women today are more likely than young men to say women are paid less for doing the same job and men have easier access to top executive jobs.”
The question is, what to do about it? The first step is to change society’s attitude. The IWPR argues, “To improve women’s earnings and reduce the gender earnings gap, women and their families need enhanced efforts to ensure non-discriminatory hiring and pay practices, better training and career counseling, and improved work-family supports. Such public policies as raising the minimum wage, which increase wages in the lowest-paid jobs, are especially important for women, particularly women of color.”
Just as Bella Abzug helped to spearhead the second-wave of feminism and Rebecca Walker “third-wave feminism,” another feminist wave of leaders, both male and female, are needed to change the system of inequality, close the earning gap, address gender discrimination and promote equal opportunities for all.
Abzug contended, “Women have been trained to speak softly and carry a lipstick. Those days are over.”
References
Pew Research Center. (2013). 10 findings about women in the workplace. Retrieved from http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2013/12/11/10-findings-about-women-in-the-workplace/.
The Gender Wage Gap by Occupation 2014 and by Race and Ethnicity. (2015, October). The Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR), C431I. 1–7.
Hill, C., & Corbett, C. (2012). Graduating to pay gap: The earnings of women and men one year after college graduation. Retrieved from http://www.aauw.org/research/graduating-to-a-pay-gap/.
Hill, C., & Corbett, C. (2012). Graduating to pay gap: The earnings of women and men one year after college graduation. Retrieved from http://www.aauw.org/research/graduating-to-a-pay-gap/.
The Gender Wage Gap by Occupation 2014 and by Race and Ethnicity. (2015, October). The Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR), C431I. 1–7.
The Gender Wage Gap by Occupation 2014 and by Race and Ethnicity. (2015, October). The Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR), C431I. 1–7.
Hill, C., & Corbett, C. (2012). Graduating to pay gap: The earnings of women and men one year after college graduation. Retrieved from http://www.aauw.org/research/graduating-to-a-pay-gap/.
Pew Research Center. (2013). 10 findings about women in the workplace. Retrieved from http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2013/12/11/10-findings-about-women-in-the-workplace/.
The Gender Wage Gap by Occupation 2014 and by Race and Ethnicity. (2015, October). The Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR), C431I. 1–7.
About the Author
Dr. Novadean Watson-Stone is currently the Program Director for the Graduate and Undergraduate Information Technology Programs at American Public University System (APUS), where she serves an aggressively growing department. She has over 15 years of experience in the Information Technology field. Recently, Dr. Watson-Stone co-authored a Question/Answer piece on Student Information Security for The Evolllution and posted the Podcast on OnlineCareerTips.com: Women in STEM: What are the Barriers to Entering Technical Fields?, October 2014. She further co-published several other articles to include RFID with Real Implications, Artificial Intelligence in Information Security, and the Evolution of Information Security.
