COLUMBUS – The wage gap between women and men in Ohio is wider than in the nation as a whole.
In Ohio, women earn on average 79 cents for every dollar a man earns, according to 2019 U.S. Census Bureau data analyzed by the National Women’s Law Center.
In 2022, women working full and part-time earned 82 percent of what men earned, according to the Pew Research Center.
Women continue to juggle household and professional responsibilities while also facing discrimination at the workplace.
“Women are still the ones managing the mental load at home, putting all that cognitive effort into managing the household, ” Kent State University associate professor of Sociology Susan Fisk said.
Research shows women tend to work in lower-paid fields, which reduces their earnings for their entire life, and Fisk adds they continue to face negative stereotypes about their competence.
“This can make it harder for women to succeed in these fields and cause them to experience bias in hiring, promotion and their day-to-day work,” she said.
Women of color were among the groups that most suffered from the economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the Women’s Fund of Central Ohio, women of color now own just two cents for every dollar a man earns.