Women in the Workforce
 

When women get equal pay, their family incomes rise and the whole family benefits. Equal pay is about basic justice and fairness and basic family economics. More wives and more mothers work for pay than ever before, and they are working more. Their earnings are essential to family support. Pay discrimination costs women a lot but it robs husbands and families, too.  

Equal Pay For Equal Work--The Facts

• Equal pay has been the law since 1963. But today, 40 years later, women are still paid less than men, even women who have similar education, skills and experience as men.
  
  
• In 2000, women were paid 73 cents for every dollar men received. That's $27 less to spend on groceries, housing, child care and other expenses for every $100 worth of work women do. Nationwide, working families lose $200 billion of income annually to the wage gap.
  
  
• These figures are even worse for women of color. African American women earn only 67 cents and Latinas 58 cents for every dollar that men earn. Asian Pacific American women earn less, too.

Global Perspective

• Women make up 45 percent of the world's workforce. Yet women account for 70 percent of the world's population living in poverty.
  
• Women in developing countries work an average of 60 to 90 hours per week.
  
• Ninety percent of the 27 million workers in export processing zones are women, most of them between the ages of 16 and 25. EPZs are tax-free industrial areas for foreign companies in which labor laws often are suspended and workers unprotected.