Women Are Learning More but Earning Less than Men

College enrollment in the US has grown substantially over the past 40 years, and women are leading the way, outpacing men in both enrollment and graduation rates. But their earnings still haven’t caught up. Although women have been the majority of college students in the US since 1979—for almost half a century—they continue to earn less than their male peers even when they hold equivalent or stronger credentials. Women also remain concentrated in lower-paying fields of study. This raises the question, Will their economic returns ever match their educational progress?

Women make up the majority of bachelor’s and graduate degree recipients—a trend projected to continue. But while higher levels of education are associated with higher earnings, women’s pay still lags behind men’s. Overall, women’s earnings have improved significantly since 1979, when women earned 60 cents on the dollar compared with men, rising to 84 cents on the dollar in 2022. More recently, however, this progress has reversed: As of 2024, women earned 81 cents on the dollar compared with men, representing the widest gender wage gap since 2016.

Narrowing our focus to prime-age workers (ages 25–54) working full time, full year reveals that women with bachelor’s degrees as their highest level of education earn roughly $68,000 annually at the median, while similarly situated men earn around $91,000 annually—meaning that among workers with a bachelor’s degree, women earn 74 cents on the dollar compared with men. This earnings ratio is very similar to the earnings ratio among workers with high school diplomas as their highest level of education—with high school–educated women making 75 cents on the dollar compared with high school–educated men. Hence, while postsecondary education boosts median earnings for women, it does not help narrow the gender wage gap among workers with similar educational attainment (Figure 2).

Variation in undergraduate field of study contributes to the gender wage gap among college-educated workers. Our analysis shows that women make up the majority of prime-age, full-time, full-year workers with bachelor’s degrees in the two fields of study associated with the lowest earnings—education and public service (75 percent female, $58,000 overall median earnings) and humanities and the arts (55 percent female, $69,000 overall median earnings). In contrast, men are the majority in the two fields of study associated with the highest earnings for workers with bachelor’s degrees: STEM (71 percent male, $98,000 overall median earnings) and business and communications (51 percent male, $86,000 overall median earnings). 

Among prime-age workers with bachelor’s degrees as their highest level of education who are working full time, full year, women are the majority (83 percent) in the field of study associated with the third-highest earnings: healthcare ($82,000 overall median earnings). However, the gender wage gap persists even in majority-women healthcare fields. For example, women hold a majority of positions in nursing. Yet male registered nurses (RNs) report higher median annual earnings than women ($95,000 and $86,000, respectively).

Graduate degrees are an additional pathway to higher earnings. Between 1970 and 2021, women’s share of graduate school enrollments increased from 35 percent to 61 percent. Today, more women than men are enrolled in law, medical, dental, and veterinary schools, among other graduate programs. Despite this, women with graduate degrees earn 71 cents on the dollar compared with men with graduate degrees—indicating a larger gender wage gap than among women and men with lower levels of educational attainment. The gender wage gap persists no matter the graduate degree type (Figure 3).

Earnings trends in graduate education mirror those in undergraduate education: The fields of study associated with the highest earnings for full-time, full-year workers with graduate degrees, ages 25–64, are STEM ($128,000), business and communications ($116,000), and healthcare ($111,000). Men also maintain a strong majority among workers with graduate degrees in STEM (72 percent), while women hold a much narrower, but still solid, majority in healthcare (63 percent).

While one could claim that the gender wage gap reflects women’s career and education choices rather than discrimination, this argument overlooks how these choices are governed by social constructs such as caretaking expectations. By the late 2000s, economists found that even when controlling for major and full-time, full-year employment, a wage gap remained, with women earning 92 cents on the dollar compared with men. This gender wage gap has largely plateaued since the 1980s, leaving a persistent residual portion not fully explainable by measurable differences in education or work experience. Furthermore, additional research by Harvard economist Claudia Goldin suggests that only a small portion of the gender wage gap is explainable by differences in occupations, while a much larger share (85 percent) occurs within occupations. 

According to Goldin, pay structures within occupations that reward long, inflexible hours can disproportionately disadvantage workers who may need more flexibility for outside responsibilities such as caregiving. These caregiving responsibilities often disproportionately fall upon women, who spend nearly twice as much time per day caring for family members than men. For example, according to US Census Bureau data, among first-time parents, around 27 percent of mothers take unpaid leave after childbirth, compared with nearly 13 percent of fathers. In addition, 14 percent of mothers quit or are let go from their jobs after the birth of their first child.

For decades, women have been told that the key to higher earnings and economic mobility is higher education. Women have listened to this advice in record numbers, yet the promise of equal pay remains broken. If progress toward closing the gender wage gap continues at the same pace as during the past two decades, it will take until 2071 for women working full time, full year to reach pay parity with similarly employed men, according to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research. For women of color, the wait is even longer: It is expected to take until 2160 and 2183, respectively, for Hispanic/Latina and Black/African American women working full time, full year to reach pay parity with white men.