What Factors Influence The Gender Pay Gap?

NPR

Published January 1, 2015 at 1:40 PM EST

Waitress Sheila Abramson at Langer's Delicatessen serves customers on February 26, 2013 in Los Angeles, California. In his report for the Atlantic, Derek Thompson showed that the gender wage gap is almost nonexistent for food service jobs (Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images).

The pay gap between men and women is at the lowest level for the Millennial generation, according to a new study by the salary information service PayScale and “personal branding agency” Millennial Branding.

Derek Thompson, senior editor at the Atlantic, tells Here & Now’s Lisa Mullins that some jobs have almost no pay gap, a phenomenon economists explain using the “sticky floor theory” of the wage gap.

“It is the idea that in low paying jobs and in entry level position you have a small pay gap,” Thompson said. “But when you look up the corporate ladder or you look up the income distribution curve, these are the jobs where you tend to see men paid significantly more than women.”

The pay gap is also vastly different depending on where you are in the country and what industry you’re in.

The Atlantic, “Why the Gender-Pay Gap Is Largest for the H ighest-Paying Jobs“

Guest

Derek Thompson, senior editor at The Atlantic. He tweets @DKThomp.