Despite attention to the issue, American women earned 79 cents for every $1 a man earned in 2017, compared with 81 cents in 2015

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

The pay gap worsened for American women younger than 40 between 2015 and 2017, despite widespread attention to the issue, according to a study.

The workforce analytics company Visier said American women earned 79 cents for every $1 a man earned in 2017, compared with 81 cents in 2015.

“Employers are not making collective progress towards achieving gender pay equity,” the Visier said, in a report published on Equal Pay Day.

Visier used anonymized company data for the last three years to examine pay and performance for more than 1.5 million American workers across 60 companies. Visier said the companies represent a wide array of industries.

At the same time that the gender wage gap increased, Visier found women were more likely to outperform their male colleagues in performance ratings. In 2017, women were 21% more likely to be rated as a top performer, compared with 12% more likely in 2015.

Visier said one of the most likely causes of the gender pay disparity is the number of women in management. In 2017, 18% of men held management positions, compared with 12% of women.

“Given managers on average earn two times the salaries of non-managers, this gap contributes significantly to the overall gender wage gap,” the report said.

The report recommended companies examines their female headcount, hiring practices, performance ratings and promotion practices to help close the gap.

Since the 1960s, the pay gap has narrowed in the US, but progress in the last couple of decades has slowed.

All UK companies with more than 250 employees had to report details of the gap between the median hourly rate paid to male and female staff by midnight on Wednesday last week.

