Although women have made significant gains in education and income during the last three decades, the pay gap between college-educated men and women persists, experts say.
A new report to be released today by the American Assn. of University Women sheds light on what is holding many female graduates back -- and what they can do to catch up.
The gender gap will remain until more women pursue careers in science and engineering, women become tougher negotiators, and employers do more to accommodate the needs of mothers with young children, said Catherine Hill, research director for the Washington-based group that promotes education equity.
"We also need to take a hard look at sex discrimination in the workplace, which is affecting young women just as it affected their mothers and grandmothers," she said.
Previous studies have found that more women than men are earning college degrees and that the salaries of college-educated women have risen much faster than those of male graduates.
Still, like other researchers, Hill and her colleagues found that an income gap persists.
Analyzing U.S. Department of Education data on 19,000 men and women, Hill's team found that one year out of college, women in 1994 earned 80% of what their male counterparts made. By 2003, a decade after graduation, they had fallen further behind, to 69% of men's incomes.
Controlling for the number of hours worked, parenthood and other factors, college-educated women still earned 12% less than their male peers, according to the report.
Students' individual choices explain part of the gap, Hill said. Engineering and computer science majors typically command higher salaries than those with education or English degrees. Yet those technical fields still draw fewer women than men nationwide -- 18% of undergraduate engineering majors and 39% of mathematics majors were women in 2000, according to the Department of Education.
Even among those with the same technical degree, such as mathematics, female graduates often become teachers, earning less than men who move into industry, Hill said.
The authors urge colleges to do more to encourage women to consider scientific and technological majors and to aim for higher-paying jobs in those fields.
Jim Case, who heads the career center at Cal State Fullerton, said the key is to communicate the "sheer joy of invention and creativity" in fields that may seem dry and abstract.
