Gender pay gap wide in Louisiana

NEW ORLEANS – Women in their first year of work after receiving a four-year college degree earned 64 cents for every dollar earned by their male counterparts in Louisiana, among the largest pay gaps between men and women in the United States, according to a newly released study.
The median annual income for such women in the state was $37,382 from 2003 to 2005. In the same period, men in Louisiana earned a median annual income of $58,514, according to the report released Monday by the American Association of University Women Educational Foundation, which conducts research on gender equity issues.
The $21,132 difference put Louisiana at 47th among the 50 states and Washington, D.C., in terms of gender pay equity, according to the study better than South Carolina, Wyoming, South Dakota and Montana in the raw numbers.
But taken as a percentage, Louisiana ranks last.
The study, called “Behind the Pay Gap,” uses data from the U.S. Department of Education to analyze about 9,000 graduates from 1992-2003 to study the earnings differences between men and women 10 years after they graduated from college. The study also tracked more than 10,000 men and women from 1999-2000 to study their earnings differences just one year after graduating from college.
The report found that, nationwide, women earn about 80 percent of what men do in the first year after college.
“By looking at earnings just one year out of college, you have as level a playing field as possible,” said Catherine Hill, director of research for the association, in a statement. “These employees don’t have a lot of experience and for the most part, don’t have caregiving obligations, so you’d expect there to be very little difference in the wages of men and women. But surprisingly, and unfortunately, we find that women already earn less even when they have the same major and occupation as their male counterparts.”
A spokeswoman for the association said there was no data to indicate why the gap was so great in Louisiana. The Louisiana Department of Labor and the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry do not study pay equity based on gender, spokeswomen for the department and association said.