In the 21st century, women are earning less than men. The Equal Pay Act, from 1963, determined that men and women must be given equal wages for equal work, and still, most establishments are paying men a higher salary for the same work as women do. The gender pay gap varies between the countries, and in the US, it’s a steady gap of about 14% – a difference of $253.60 per week.
Equal Pay Day is a symbolic day dedicated to raising public awareness of the gender pay gap. It was developed in 1996 by The National Committee on Pay Equity (NCPE) – an association of women’s and civil rights organizations, to eliminate sex-based wage discrimination and reach pay equality.
The main goals of marking Equal Pay Day are to present information about the gender pay gap and the reasons it still exists, to provide a platform to learn and share knowledge about the problem, and encourage acts and strategies for closing the gap.
Because women’s average salary is lower than men’s, women need to work further into the next year to earn the same amount of money men made in the previous year. Thus, Equal Pay Day does not have a regular date on the calendar and changes every year according to the day in which women’s average wage matched men’s average salary of the last year. The date for Equal Pay Day is calculated every year with the formula – the gender pay gap in percent x 365 days of the year = number of days women work for free.
In 2019, women earned 0.80$ for every dollar men earned, and the equal payday was April 2nd, 2019.
The wage gap exists not only between men and women but also between women from different racial and ethnic groups. Therefore, in addition to the All Women’s Equal Pay Day, more days recognize the wage gap – Asian-American Women’s Equal Day, Black Women’s Equal Pay Day, Latina Equal Pay Day, Native Women’s Equal Pay Day, and Mother’s Equal Pay Day.
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