US women managers paid less than male counterparts

Women managers in the United States are paid 81 cents for every dollar earned by male managers, according to a government report released on Tuesday.

The 19-cent wage gap marks a slight narrowing from a study seven years earlier that showed women managers making 79 cents to each man's dollar, said the report by the US government accountability office.

The study compared US census bureau data from 2000 to 2007.

"Little progress has been made since 2000," said US representative Carolyn Maloney, a New York Democrat who chairs the US Congress joint economic committee, which organised a hearing on the report in Washington on Tuesday.

"Progress has been slow both when it comes to expanding women's share of management positions and in cutting into the pay gap," Maloney told Reuters ahead of the report's release.

Women made up 40% of managers and 49% of non-managers in the 2007 work force, largely unchanged from 2000, the study said.

The study found that having children was a major factor in gender pay differences.

Women managers with children earned 79 cents for every man's dollar in 2007, whereas those without children earned 83 cents.

In addition, mothers of children below 18 comprised just 14% of managers and 17% of non-managers.

The median annual salary for female managers in 2007 was $52,000, and for male managers it was $75,000.

The study looked at 13 industry sectors — construction, manufacturing, information and communications, leisure and hospitality, professional and business services, public administration, retail trade, transportation and utilities, wholesale trade, health care and social assistance, educational services, financial activities and other services.

The sectors represented all industries except agriculture and mining.

The pay gaps differed by industry, ranging from a 22-cent gap in construction to a 13-cent gap in public administration.

As families' primary breadwinners, female managers contributed 55% of household income and male managers contributed 75%.

The study looked at 2000 through 2007, in an effort to factor out the role of the US recession beginning in 2008 when more men than women lost jobs, Maloney said.

In the recession, she said, "a woman's pay cheque became more important, so when you discriminated against a woman, families' economies were thinner and suffer".

She blamed some of the persistent wage gap on discrimination and rest on gender stereotypes.

The report said researchers had not agreed on reasons for the gap and said some differences could be explained by factors that are difficult to measure — such as levels of responsibility, years of experience, or discriminatory practices.