The pay gap between men and women is still a massive problem, one that’s getting more press but hasn’t really caught on as a serious issue in this election cycle. (Did you hear anything about it in last night’s debate? We didn’t.) The fight for equal wages for equal work is, yes, becoming codified into law in some states, but for every dollar men earn, women are still taking home a little over two dimes less.
And, yet, today brings us some very, very good news on this front. According to the rarely wrong and always non-partisan Pew Research Center’s women’s pay has increased 32% percent from 1980 to 2015 while men’s pay has decreased 3% during the same 25-year period. That’s a lot of ground made up for lost time.
Crucially, the Center’s latest report, “The State of American Jobs,” reports that women hold the majority of jobs “requiring higher social or analytical skills”—the jobs most associated with new-economy startups and with the most upside in a country that is constantly shifting away from manufacturing/physical labor.
The big takeaway here is that wage discrimination and a society that still marks out women for roles in the service industry and homecare may still be keeping money out of women’s pockets, but the future of employment is looking ever-more female. Equality seems just around the corner.