COLUMN: Gender wage gap: the good, the bad, the ugly

New research about the gender wage gap shows that for millennial women, there’s good news and there’s bad news. The good news is that, according to the Resolution Foundation, the gender wage gap for millennial women new to the workforce has dropped from 16 percent for Baby Boomers women to 5 percent for millenials.

The bad news —because these days it seems victories for women must always come with some — is that the same Resolution Foundation study found that women in the millennial generation, upon hitting their mid-40s, are projected to make 30 percent less than their male counterparts. A Pew Research Center study attributed this to the persistence of traditional, gendered expectations of female employees and motherhood. These expectations are reflected in recent research by Cornell University revealing that female employees were 8 percent less likely to receive promotions after a law guaranteeing their right to comprehensive maternity leave — but not family leave — was passed in the United States.

In light of these facts, it is clear that we must fight for a family leave policy that doesn’t burden women, policies that require employers to justify higher wages for male employees whose experience and qualifications are similar to those of lower-paid female employees and above all, we must protect women’s right to negotiate without retribution.

The fact that research shows that millennial women are poised to join their male peers in the workforce as near-equals, and perhaps even outdo them, but lose equality at an older age is concerning. Deteriorating progress at the hands of discriminatory norms when women reach their 40s raises the question of what younger women can do to prepare themselves to fight the injustice that appears to inevitably await them. The overarching issue of pay discrimination is alleviated neither by adamant denial of its existence nor by oversimplifications of it, such as references to the “78 cents” statistic without offering proper context.

Much is made of the existence of pointed gender gaps in lucrative, high-paying fields, which make for consistent pay and expansive opportunities for upward mobility. Today, jobs like this are generally in infamously male-dominated STEM fields. I am studying journalism and political science, both fields that aren’t exactly associated with lavish wealth, so I know firsthand how often young women are blamed for inflicting the wage gap upon themselves by disproportionately pursuing the humanities.

We seldom ask ourselves about the cultural values and gender roles that steer women — but not men — from pursuing lucrative fields, nor do we consider the long history of societal devaluation of feminized lines of work, evidenced by numerous studies indicating that once male-dominated fields, from teaching to nursing, substantially lose prestige and pay quality upon gradually becoming dominated by women. As Paula England, a sociology professor at New York University, told The New York Times in their report on the devaluation of feminized work last year, once women start doing a job, “it just doesn’t look like it’s as important … or requires as much skill.”

In this sense, “progress” arguably isn’t just encouraging women to abandon their personal interests and pursue STEM, but also reconsider how we evaluate the value of work as a whole. Still, at USC, it’s worth noting and applauding how gender gaps in formerly male-dominated areas of study are beginning to close. In 2016, USA Today ranked USC as the third best college for women studying STEM, noting how the number of women in tenured faculty positions pertaining to the sciences has tripled since 2000.

However, very tellingly, a 2016 study by the Ohio State University found women with STEM-related Ph.D.s still earn about 31 percent less than men with STEM-related Ph.D.s. We can’t just write off the wage gap as the product of women purportedly hating science. Instead, we have to own up to the fact that discrimination, even if unconscious, remains prevalent and influences how employers determine who is worthy of raises and promotions.

Young women shouldn’t hold their breaths waiting for rapid cultural progress. Now that we have the facts, it’s a matter of using them to fight for positive change. We deserve better than what seems to await us in the workplace, but we’ll have to fight for it.

Kylie Cheung is a freshman majoring in journalism and political science. Her column,“You do Uterus,” runs Thursdays.