A gap is not one number. It shows up in what people are paid, in which jobs they end up holding, and in who ends up giving the orders — and the three feed each other. Take each one apart below.
The 17-cent gap, itemized
Three lenses on the same gap
Gender stratificationpick a place to look
C. Wright Mills, on the whole exercise: one woman’s small paycheck is a personal trouble. An economy in which women’s median earnings sit at 83¢ on the dollar across every state and nearly every occupation is a public issue of social structure. Telling them apart is the sociological imagination.