GREEN BAY (NBC 26) — March 15 is ‘Equal Pay Day’.
It is a day aimed to raise awareness of how much women make compared to their male counterparts.
Andrea Huggenvik, the YWCA’s social justice program specialist said there are two different ways to measure pay wage gaps.
"If we have a male IT manager in Green Bay with a Master's Degree versus a female IT manager in Green Bay with a Master's Degree, that pay gap is really small. Women are making like 98 cents for every dollar a woman is making,” Huggenvik said.
She explained this as a controlled pay gap and essentially compared apples to apples.
But what has a larger disparity is what she describes as an opportunity gap.
She said that would be for example comparing all working men's salaries with all working women’s salaries.
“Women are making about 82 cents for every dollar that men are making,” Huggenvik said.
She said a big reason why women tend to make less money than men is because of the jobs they decide to hold.
Huggenvik said many women tend to not go for manager type of positions because of the family life balance many want as mothers.
"Women are more likely to take time off of their careers to be able to manage household and child stuff. We've just seen many women leave in droves over the last two years,” Huggenvik said.
In addition, she also said the pandemic has absolutely widened the pay gap, and we can expect long-term effects from it.
But she said the conversation also revolves around how many women are being hired versus men.
"Depends a lot on what kind of industry you're looking at but somewhere between two times and 70 times men get more interests in their resumes when it’s submitted than woman,” Huggenvik said.
And while we have come a long way with salary inequities over the years, Huggenvick says the wage disparity shows that there is still much work to be done.
To learn more about 'Equal Pay Day' click here.
