The Atlantic has an interesting interview with Francine Blau, a labor economist at Cornell, about the male-female wage gap. Here are some highlights:
- In 1950, women earned about 60% less.
- Today, that figure is around 77%.
- Adjusting for human capital brings the gap down slightly (from 23 to 19%) and controlling for industry brings it down to 9%.
- Blau brings up some good points about how these adjustments may result in understating the gap (if women have better unmeasured skills such as interpersonal skills or if industry choice is endogenous/related to discrimination in various industries). On the other hand, she brings up potential employer concerns about future commitments and time availability in response to the following question:
What about the role of motherhood? How much does that really impact women’s earning potential, and to what degree?
I don’t think we completely have the answer to that. But one way…
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Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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