The gender pay gap is alive and well, unfortunately, which is somewhat startling when you realize that half the workforce is made up of women. According to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR), in 2015, female, full-time workers made only 79 cents for every dollar earned by men—resulting in a gender wage gap of 21%.
 |
Women, on average, earn less than men in virtually every single occupation for which there is sufficient earnings data for both men and women to calculate an earnings ratio. So it’s no secret that there’s a pay gap, but which industries have the largest gap? Employee Benefits News recently compiled a list, using data from Glassdoor®, of the top 10 industries that have the largest gender pay gap.
The data looks at the “adjusted” gender pay gap, which is smaller than the often-cited gender pay gap, but it remains statistically significant when discussing pay disparity. Here are the top 10 jobs that offer the highest percentage “adjusted” pay gap:
- Computer Programmer—28.3%
- Chef—28.1%
- Dentist—28.1%
- C-Suite Executive–27.7%
- Pilot—27.2%
- Psychologist—27.2%
- Pharmacist—21.8%
- Computer-Aided Drafting (CAD) Designer—21.5%
- Physician—18.2%
- Optician—17.3%
When you look at this list, it doesn’t really come as a surprise that there’s this high of a gap—most of the industries are predominately male-dominated. However, this pay gap could soon be old news … but not too soon! IWPR reports, “if change continues at the same slow pace as it has done for the past 50 years, it will take 44 years—or until 2059—for women to finally reach pay parity.