Women in Lancaster County are paid 76 cents for every dollar paid to men | Local News

Lancaster County women were paid significantly less than men across all major industries from 2016-20, new data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows.

The median earnings for full-time, year-round female workers in Lancaster County was 76.4% of men’s earnings during that period, a slight improvement from 2006-10 when they were paid 71.7% of men’s wages, according to recently released American Community Survey data.

Lancaster’s pay gap was worse than the national average – U.S. women were paid about 81 cents for every dollar men were – and third-worst among Lancaster and its surrounding counties, with only Chester and Dauphin having bigger pay gaps, according to the census data.

The American Community Survey, conducted each year, asks respondents about their biological sex but not their gender, meaning the statistics do not account for transgender or nonbinary people. A national survey from the Human Rights Campaign Foundation found nonbinary full-time workers were paid 70% of what the average full-time worker was and transgender women made 60% of an average worker’s weekly wage in 2021.

Nationally, the pay disparities varied widely among women of different races and ethnicities as well. From 2016-20, Hispanic women were paid 55% of the median wage non-Hispanic white men made; Native American women, 58%; Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander women, 61%; and Black women were paid 62%, according to the census data. County-level data was not available for race and sex subcategories.

Though they comprised just under half the total workforce in Lancaster, women constituted the vast majority of the county’s educators, health care and personal care workers in 2016-20, and claimed a growing share of jobs in law enforcement, firefighting and farming compared to 2006-10.

“We want to be able to invest in our economy in a way that helps generate good for all, but we can’t do that if we’re not seen as valuable in terms of our gifts, skills, and opportunity,” said Vanessa Philbert, the first female chief executive officer of the Community Action Partnership of Lancaster County, the county’s largest anti-poverty organization. 

Different types of jobs

While employer discrimination plays a role in fueling the pay gap, there are other important factors driving the discrepancy, including occupational segregation, when there are certain fields more dominated by men or women that pay differently, said Leanne Roncolato, chair of the economics department at Franklin & Marshall College.

For example, construction, where 93.6% of full-time, year-round workers were male, paid a median annual wage of $55,340 in Lancaster County, while the health care and social assistance industry, where three-in-four workers were female, paid annual median earnings of $44,208.

Likewise, the industries that paid the highest median earnings to full-time, year-round civilian workers in Lancaster – utilities, company management and public administration – were composed of a large majority of male workers, according to the census data.

“To the extent that we have women over-represented or more concentrated in certain sectors that are typically associated with lower income, that’s also going to amplify wage discrepancies,” said Naomi Young, director of the Center for Regional Analysis at the Economic Development Company of Lancaster County. “You can think about the traditional gender biases that go with the gender balance in those sectors and their employment opportunities.”

Lifting the barriers of occupational segregation would allow us to better use the talent in our workforce and improve the production of the economy, Roncolato said.

“If a woman would actually be more talented and best served as a computer programmer, but she has been shut out of that industry because of discrimination, because of socialization, because of childcare barriers … then we’re not using our labor to its best capacity,” Roncolato said.

Even when they work in the same industry, women tend to be paid less than men due to lacking access to upper-level positions in those fields. In Lancaster, women held just over a third of all full-time, year-round management occupations and comprised less than a tenth of top executives in 2019, according to the census data.

Manufacturing – Lancaster County’s largest industry by full-time, year-round civilian workers – employed more than three-times more men than women, and women were paid about 78% of men’s $56,173 median earnings, a difference of more than $12,000 a year. Women were disproportionately less likely to hold supervisor positions in production jobs, according to the census data.

The trend held true even in Lancaster’s occupational fields in which women outnumbered men. In the health care and social assistance industry, full-time working women were paid about $13,400 less than men. They were less likely than men to be physicians and surgeons but far more likely to be nurses.

Burden of care

Experts also attribute the wage gap in part to women being expected to undertake care responsibilities that diminish their ability to advance their careers. 

Women tend to be seen as the default caretakers in families, making it more likely they will need to take time off from work to care for children and elders, Roncolato said. They are also more likely to take on unpaid care responsibilities in the workplace, like planning office parties or buying food for coworkers, which do not translate into raises or promotions, she added.

Schools and daycares closing during the pandemic exacerbated the burden of care placed on women, making them more likely to quit their jobs in states where daycares and schools shut down at higher rates, according to a 2022 report from Gusto, a human resources platform. In Pennsylvania, where about one in three households faced disruptions in child care, women were more than one percent more likely to quit their jobs than men in January 2022.

The high cost of child care – in Pennsylvania, infant care costs on average $987 a month, according to the Economic Policy Institute – is another barrier women with children face in advancing their careers. Stacie Blake, chief executive officer of YWCA Lancaster, said many women participating in YWCA’s career development or emergency shelter programs are single mothers who aren’t able to seek or train for new jobs without access to child care.

“They can’t take a step forward without childcare, because you certainly cannot take your children to job interviews,” Blake said. “You cannot leave your children in a shelter while you go to a job.”

The tendency for women to be the principal caregivers for their families also creates an implicit bias among employers that women in their late 20s will need to take more time off, which can affect whether they’re hired, promoted or able to secure a higher salary, Roncolato added.

A 2017 study found the wage gap between men and women tended to widen with age, especially for married women around the time they tended to start families.

What can be done

Roncolato believes the first priority in closing the pay gap is providing subsidized, reliable child care beginning with universal preschool, she said.

A report from the Century Foundation found states with effective care policies, such as paid family leave and universal preschool, on average had smaller wage gaps and higher labor force participation rates among women. With no laws requiring employers to make accommodations to pregnant workers in the workplace and offering no family tax credits, Pennsylvania received a “D” grade for its care policies.

Communities also need to build career paths for women into well-paying industries where they are underrepresented and ensure those work environments are inclusive, Young said.

“I think that’s also part of updating and ensuring that we know where those career paths and opportunities exist, and that we’re being very intentional about what are the skills that women need as they enter the workforce,” she said.

A 2021 study from the Institute for Women’s Policy Research found if working women in Pennsylvania were paid the same wages as men with the same age, level of education, working hours and urban or rural status, their poverty rate would drop from 8.2% to 5%.

The study found paying women equally would also improve the economy as a whole, as Pennsylvania would add nearly $20 billion to its gross domestic product, 2.5% of its current GDP, if working women earned the same as comparable men.

“If your goal is to strengthen the economy of let’s say, Lancaster County, I think you need everybody,” Blake said. “I don’t think you can afford to think that we are going to position ourselves as the premier place to live and work and raise a family if we are not a place that has a role for everyone.”