VP Article - November 2010

While volunteering at a recent Outreach event held at the girlsBest Convening in October, the SWE-MN group was asked by a young girl why a wage gap existed between male and female engineers. At first I was caught off guard but such a multifaceted question raised by a young girl and then secondly, I realized I didn’t have a good answer. In their recent report titled “Status of Women & Girls in Minnesota”, the University of MN Humphrey Institute’s Center on Women & Public Policy, in partnership with the Women’s Foundation of Minnesota address this important issue.

In today’s world, women make up the majority of MN’s workforce. According to the report, 40% of MN mothers are the primary breadwinners of their household. We know that many of these women have bachelor’s, master’s, and other post-secondary degrees, but despite their education, women earn on average no more than $0.76 on the dollar compared to men in MN. The report goes into detail the wage gap difference between different races, rural vs. urban areas, and between occupations. The report states that in the architecture and engineering occupations, women are earning 89% of what men earn in the same occupations.

Why is this the case?

There are several theories of why the wage gap still exists today when women have made so many advances toward equality.

Here’s what some say:
-Women are more relationship focused and not driven or motivated by a higher paycheck
-Women tend to take time off of work in order to have children and help raise a family
-Women are not as good as negotiation as men.

And others say they just don’t know why. I found this report to be very educational and helpful in better understanding my place as a female engineer in the workplace and I encourage you to spend some time reading it as well. Hopefully, the next time I am asked why there is a wage gap in the engineering profession; I will be able to say that one doesn’t exist.

The full report can be downloaded from the Women’s Foundation of MN website here.

- Lesley