Even with a degree, Kentucky women face worse pay disparity than national average
Even with a college degree, women in Kentucky continue to make significantly less money than men over the course of a lifetime, recent research shows.
Women with an associate’s or bachelor’s degree earn 73 cents for every dollar earned by their male counterparts with matching degrees, according to a research report published Thursday by Kentucky’s Council on Postsecondary Education. At every level of education, the state’s gender earnings gap is wider than the national average — 82 cents made by women for every dollar made by men, census data shows.
“Despite tremendous gains on college campuses, women are not reaping the same rewards in the workplace,” said Aaron Thompson, president of the council, in a statement. “Hopefully this research will encourage more employers to reevaluate their pay structure and the role of women in leadership positions. Undervaluing the contributions of our female workforce harms us all.”
The data does show that individuals of either gender make more over their lifetime with increased levels of education. The median lifetime income for a woman with a master’s degree is $2.2 million, according to the report which is based on survey results from the 2016-18 American Community Survey of full-time workers. For comparison, the median lifetime income for a woman with only a high school diploma is $1.2 million and $2.1 million with a bachelor’s degree.
However when comparing genders and level of education, the disparity becomes more obvious. The median income for a man with an associate’s degree was $2.2 million over a lifetime — the same as a woman with a master’s degree. Kentucky women with a master’s degree also earn around $650,000 less than a man with a bachelor’s degree.
“In this case, gains in educational attainment by Kentucky women did not close the earnings gap with less educated men,” the council’s research report stated.
There are some instances where women are earning more than men. Women ages 25-29 with terminal degrees — the highest level of education attainable in a field — make $1.41 to ever dollar earned by their similarly aged male counterparts.
“This anomaly was driven largely by women under 30 with a doctoral degree, whose median annual earnings were nearly $7,000 higher than their male counterparts,” the report stated. “Although a promising trend for younger women, it remains unclear if these higher earnings will be sustained across a lifetime.”