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It’s a simple question: Are women paid equally to men in D.C., Northern Virginia and Maryland?
“Generally, almost, but not quite,” said Ariane Hegewisch, senior research fellow for the Institute of Women’s Policy Research, a D.C.-based think tank.
Wages in the D.C. region are among the highest in the country.
“We have a lot of law firms, and the types of jobs where high earnings are possible,” Hegewisch said. “In those circumstances, women typically have less access to the highest echelons of earnings.”
According to a report by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, the District ranks with the 17th narrowest gender pay gap nationwide.
Giving the example of a high-paying job within a law firm, challenges facing women can be varied, she said. “The issue may not be exactly that you’re doing the same job as somebody else and getting paid less, but that you’re not being promoted to the best jobs, or that you’re not introduced to the clients that bring the biggest bonuses.”
The gap is narrowed further in Maryland, which ranks fourth in the Institute for Women’s Policy research report.
“In Maryland, the wage gap is 86.7%, so women earn $13 less on every $100 earned by men,” Hegewisch said. “Then Virginia has a wage gap of 83.5%, which is kind of more or less where the country is.”
The wage gap is narrower in the District and surrounding suburbs.
“Maryland and Virginia have a lot of other areas where the opportunities for professional and high-earning jobs are not quite as high as in the DMV area,” she said.
Women employed by the federal government tend to be paid more equitably than in the private sector.
“There’s a lot of transparency,” Hegewisch said. “There may be some differences in pay sometimes, but the wage gap in that sector is lower — only 7%. And that’s because there is a focus on transparency and not discriminating.”
Locally, as well as nationally, she adds: “Care work, teachers, child care workers, nurses, tend to get paid less for their investment in education than engineers, or architects, or software engineers, so that’s also a factor behind the wage gap.”
What can be done to lessen the wage gap?
“We always say that a good labor market for women is one where there’s lots of professional opportunities, but also where you have paid family leave, and you have childcare,” Hegewisch said.
Hegewisch said the goal should be to “make sure that childcare and care work does not penalize women — so having proper investments and making that care available at not extraordinarily high costs is very important.”
She said D.C. and Maryland currently have family leave, while Virginia doesn’t.
Most couples with children choose to have the higher-earning spouse continue to work, while the lesser-earning spouse provides child care and might work part-time.
Hegewisch said current policies, which don’t provide men with the opportunity to stay home, perpetuate the gender wage gap, “because they often get penalized by their employer.”
Asked if there are any professions where women typically make more than men, Hegewisch said there were two, nationally.
“One is producers and directors,” she said. “If you make a lot of money, you have your own production firm, and then you are a CEO.”
The other profession?
“Educational counselors, and that may be an age issue. It’s a very female occupation, and now you’ve got more men going into it,” she said.
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