Report: Women in Massachusetts Make 2.2 Percent Less than Men Working Same Jobs

Pay Gap Photo via Shutterstock

A woman makes 78 cents for every dollar a man makes in the United States. This is nothing new. But as appalling as this figure from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics is, it’s a simplistic look at the gender pay gap in this country. Regardless of industry, job type, or skill level, men hold more higher-paying jobs than women. But what happens when you account for differences in experience, location, hours worked, education, and other factors?

Data scientists at PayScale, a crowd-sourced salary database, crunched the numbers for 1.4 million salary profiles in order to create a more “apples-to-apples” comparison. According their report released Thursday, women earn unequal pay for equal work across the board.

Women in Massachusetts make 2.2 percent less than men with similar qualifications working in the same jobs. The gap widens to 3.3 percent for married women with children. The median pay for women in the Bay State, when accounting for the above factors, is $69,100—compare that to $70,700, the median pay for men.

Social worker, the most relatively common job for women in Mass., takes home a median salary of $44,000. Engineer, the most relatively common job for men, carries a $74,800 median salary. The most relatively common job for men in four states—Alaska, Delaware, Michigan and Washington—have median salaries in excess of $100,000. In no state does the most relatively common job for women pay more than $77,000.

Nationwide, the study found that men’s salaries continue to increase their early 50s, with a median salary of $75,000. Women’s salaries, on the other hand, plateau in their late 30s, with a median salary of $49,000. Though the study found no industry where women earn just as much or more than their male counterparts overall, the tech industry saw the smallest controlled pay gap.

You can read PayScale’s full report here.