Dive Brief:

• Women make 98 cents for every dollar men earn, according to PayScale data accounting for compensable factors such as experience, industry and job level. Without these controls, women make 81 cents for every dollar men make — a slight increase over the 79 cents on the dollar measured last year. The report, released March 24, encompasses 1.8 million responses to PayScale's online survey conducted between January 2017 and February 2019.
• PayScale identified a disparity between men and women in how quickly they climb their career ladders. The report dubbed this phenomenon the "opportunity gap." Men are twice as likely as women to be directors or executives by the time they are 45, the report found.
• American Indian and Alaska Native women, black or African American women, and Hispanic women earn 75 cents for every dollar a white man earns, PayScale found.

Dive Insight:

In addition to the demographic-based pay data it collected, PayScale also found how pay transparency practices — something many organizations are implementing — affect pay inequality. When employees reported feeling their companies used transparent pay processes, "women were estimated to earn between $1 and $1.01 for every dollar earned by men — effectively erasing the gender pay gap," PayScale said.

Several household names have publicized their pay equity efforts, which has proven to be an important part of employer branding. Last summer, Nordstrom announced it had reached 100% pay equity for employees of all genders and races. The store said it committed itself to pay parity, too, which it defined as "a way to measure and report on gender representation of all levels of the company." More recently, Mastercard said median pay for female workers is roughly 92% of median pay for male workers. The company has achieved pay equity, it said, among male and female employees at the same level, working in the same roles.

While many visible employers have taken measures toward pay transparency and pay equity, it does not appear to be a universal business practice. Sixty percent of employers in a May 2019 WorldatWork and Korn Ferry survey said they are working actively to achieve pay equity. For those who had identified pay gaps, 23% were considering remediation strategies, and 28% hadn't started the process whatsoever.