Ohio's wage gap has typically been worse than the national average.  In 2000, according to Current Population Survey figures from the US Census, women in Ohio made a median wage of $10.80 an hour -- 74 percent of the $14.64 hourly median wage for men.  The overall gender wage gap in Ohio has decreased since 1979, when women made only 61 percent of median male wages.  The gap decrease occurred partly because women's wages increased by 10 percent, but the other half of the story is that men's wages fell 10 percent during the same time period.

Similarly, the wage gap between African American men and women is masked by the fact that black men lost 23 percent of their wages since 1979.  Ohio's black women have seen less of a wage increase than white women in the past two decades, and they now earn one dollar less per hour than white women.  Even after the steep wage cut for black men, African American women in 2000 still made $10.00 an hour to black men's median hourly wage of $11.44 an hour.  That's 87 percent of the black male median wage.

Nationally and in Ohio, gender gaps don't disappear with higher levels of education.  On average, women often make less than men with lower levels of education.  Ohio still has dramatic differences in wages between men and women at every education level.

On the other hand, the gender gap decreases dramatically in unionized workplaces, where Ohio women make 16 percent less than men. Ohio's union women make a median wage of $13.46 an hour, 24 percent more than non-union women, who make a median wage of $10.25 an hour.  Click here for more information on working Ohio.

People cite a variety of reasons for the gender wage gap, and not all have to do with discrimination.  Women are often concentrated in lower paying fields of work.  On average, they tend to have lower educational attainment than men.  Because most women take care of a disproportionate amount of child and house care, they are less likely than men to move continuously up a career ladder.  Many who temporarily leave the workforce to have children are at the same age when many men start building careers. 

But still, studies show that up to half of the gender wage gap have nothing to do with any of these explanations.  Instead, it comes from many different forms of discrimination: not valuing skills and jobs commonly held by women, crowding women in low-paying fields and expecting that women are not aggressive or ambitious enough to do a job well.  And further, because the wage gap exists, families who send one parent to work have a financial incentive to send a man.  When family leave benefits and decent child care aren't available, it makes it that much harder for women to build strong, continuous careers.  Much has to be done before equal work means equal pay, regardless of sex.

The 1963 Fair Pay Act made wage and benefit discrimination illegal toward women and men at the same workplace who do jobs requiring equal skill, effort, responsibility and work conditions.  The Act allowed wage differences based on merit systems.  In 1964, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act prohibited discriminatory hiring, termination, pay and work terms on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin and sex (including pregnancy and birth).  In the 1970's courts ruled that jobs don't have to be identical, only "substantially equal" in order to require equal pay. 

In recent years, Fair Pay advocates have pushed for legislation based on the idea of "comparable worth."  Within each workplace, men and women would have to be paid equally for jobs that scored the same in skill, effort, responsibility and work conditions.  For example, it has been argued that nurses and tree-trimmers should have equivalent wages.  Comparable worth is intended to eliminate wage penalties that only exist because a person works in a female-dominated field. 

Beyond fair pay legislation, family leave for women and men and decent, affordable and accessible child care are necessary steps toward eventually eliminating the gender wage gap.