The Continuing Gender Wage Gap.

Women are the primary or co-breadwinner in six out of ten American families, which makes the economic imperative of addressing the wage gap between men and women vital. We frequently hear that women earn on average seventy-seven cents for every rand earned by men, and that is true when one
considers the full-time wages of all working women vs. the full-time wages of all working men. But it is more complicated than that. Some point to the fact that women are disproportionately concentrated in the lowest- paying fields and are not well represented in higher-paying fields. On the other hand, a majority of the pay gap between men and women actually comes from differences within occupations, not between them. This gap widens in the highest-paying occupations like business, law, and medicine.Employers most value long hours and work at particular hours. If employers instead instituted workplace flexibility in terms of hours and locations, the gender gap in pay would be considerably reduced and might vanish altogether. Whatever the reasons, the gender pay gap continues and is an issue that must be dealt with. To get rid of this gap, one prohibits federal contractors from retaliating against employees for sharing salary information with co-workers. The other directs the Labor Department to adopt regulations requiring federal contractors to report salary data to the agency, including gender and race breakdowns, that can be used to better target government enforcement.