An important study by Research & Planning, Department of Employment, reached some conclusions of interest to teachers, counselors, parents, students, and adults returning to school: starting wages and wage increases for females lag behind males with the same tenure in all industries. Even accounting for age, females have lower average wage increases than males. An important caution in interpreting this study is that the researcher, Mary Beth O'Loughlin, was not able to account for wage differences due to occupations or part-time work. For example, one would expect that a physician would typically earn more than a nurse even though both are in the same medical industry. The research study may be examined in its entirety in Wyoming Labor Force Trends (August 1997).
In the research design of this study(1), all the employees in the analysis had an equal amount of tenure with the same employer. This data was matched with some industry information for each employer using computer databases. Only employees who participate in the state unemployment insurance program were used. The final computer database contained information to answer the research questions: "When males and females have the same amount of tenure, are the wages also the same?" and "Controlling for tenure, age and industry, are increases in pay distributed evenly between males and females?"
In regard to wages, the results of this study indicate that female wages lagged behind by an average of thirty-eight percent (38%) in all industries, with a peak difference after three years of employment of thirty- nine percent (39%) behind male wages. Interestingly, Service and Retail Trade industries are dominated by female employees, but the wages do not reflect this fact. Over all four years in the study, females earn an average of forty percent (40%) less than males in the Service industry and thirty-eight percent (38%) less in the Retail Trade industry. Please see the Table which displays the average quarterly wages by industry, gender, and length of service.
| Table: Average Quarterly Wages | |||||||
| Industry | Gender | Count | Starting Wage | 1 Year Tenure | 2 Years Tenure | 3 Years Tenure | 4 Years Tenure |
| Mining | Male | 52 | $8,893.03 | $11,156.20 | $11,129.80 | $12,053.30 | $11,685.90 |
| Female | 5 | 4,729.94 | 4,023.62 | 4,968.73 | 6,064.87 | 6,256.88 | |
| Construction | Male | 61 | $4,296.04 | $6,197.05 | $6,754.34 | $6,814.60 | $7,340.57 |
| Female | 12 | 2,195.43 | 2,745.20 | 3,323.85 | 3,358.55 | 3,704.45 | |
| Manufacturing | Male | 47 | $5,879.66 | $8,428.70 | $9,066.02 | $9,479.12 | $9,974.50 |
| Female | 11 | 3,408.25 | 4,105.50 | 5,170.02 | 4,118.90 | 4,359.14 | |
| Transportation & Public Utilities | Male | 31 | $6,047.07 | $7,764.94 | $8,617.32 | $9,424.26 | $10,038.90 |
| Female | 8 | 3,933.62 | 5,130.31 | 5,512.98 | 5,858.60 | 6,223.12 | |
| Wholesale Trade | Male | 37 | $5,201.01 | $7,428.06 | $7,870.06 | $8,569.16 | $8,891.04 |
| Female | 8 | 4,374.79 | 4,589.58 | 5,159.83 | 5,407.56 | 4,528.38 | |
| Retail Trade | Male | 62 | $3,007.28 | $4,748.70 | $5,405.47 | $5,673.50 | $5,925.04 |
| Female | 73 | 1,660.27 | 2,974.43 | 3,258.85 | 3,527.04 | 3,653.69 | |
| Finance, Insurance, & Real Estate | Male | 20 | $11,115.90 | $12,279.10 | $14,062.60 | $13,035.00 | $14,874.20 |
| Female | 36 | 1,992.33 | 3,833.47 | 4,262.41 | 4,420.62 | 5,152.03 | |
| Service | Male | 162 | $8,603.73 | $10,001.40 | $10,990.90 | $11,252.60 | $11,308.60 |
| Female | 277 | 5,047.76 | 6,088.80 | 6,427.15 | 6,610.61 | 7,001.96 | |
| Government | Male | 44 | $3,303.04 | $4,895.76 | $5,613.62 | $5,989.92 | $6,233.97 |
| Female | 22 | 2,776.58 | 3,938.25 | 4,193.22 | 4,113.00 | 4,639.32 | |
| Total | Male | 516 | $6,450.86 | $8,227.68 | $8,951.77 | $9,294.82 | $9,565.00 |
| Female | 452 | 3,996.00 | 5,098.14 | 5,466.59 | 5,628.99 | 5,981.20 | |
In regard to pay increases, females' average increases are only about sixty percent (60%) those of males even when controlling for equal tenure. The largest discrepancy occurs after three years of tenure when males average forty-four percent (44%) higher than their starting wages and females average forty-one percent (41%) higher. Wages grow over all years for both genders, but males start higher and remain ahead of females. Even in the female-dominated Services industry, males received higher wage increases in every age category.
In interpreting the results of this study, an interesting insight about wage increases is that male wage increases appear to be more consistent across all industries than female wage increases; please see the Figure which displays the average quarterly wage increases for males and females.
Increases for males range from a low of $676 in the Services industry to a high of $1,024 in the Manufacturing industry. Females were substantially different with a low wage increase of $38 in the Wholesale Trade industry and a high of $790 in the Finance, Insurance, & Real Estate industry. Occupational variations may account for some of these differences. Tenure is equal for all employees in the study, but previous experience was not known. Previous experience, educational attainment and self selection (individual choices of occupations etc) could also have an impact on the rate of wage increases. However, the pattern of wage increases may differ by gender with more consistency across industries for the males. It should be noted that the information in the database used for this research study is from the second quarter of 1992 through the fourth quarter of 1996.
A hopeful note in this research is that the only age group in which females have an average wage increase close to that of males is for the 19-25 year old females. For this younger age group, females averaged $1,018 and males averaged $1,035, a difference of only $17 per quarter in favor of the males.
In conclusion, this research study provides important information to help educators and students to make some informed choices in the future. It suggests that students and families carefully consider the future wages for their children across industries. This research may be used to inform our audience about the wage differences by gender and the possibly role of education and career choices in narrowing the gap between males and females with equal tenure and age. This article ends on a positive note concerning the nearly equal wages of males and females in the younger age group of 19-25 years old.