Should We Address the Gender Wage Gap?

Open to Debate

News, Society & Culture, Education

4.5 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 21 March 2025

⏱️ 53 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

American women are, on average, paid 84 cents for every dollar men make, according to the Department of Labor. This wage gap has persisted despite near-record rates of women’s participation in the labor market, with wage gaps even larger for women in minority populations, and it’s estimated that pay parity will not be achieved until 2052. Should policy interventions address these disparities, or is it more important to recognize and honor women's personal decisions and find another way to look at the gap Those in favor of fixing the gap see it as a point of fairness and equity that would bring economic benefits, such as enhanced family incomes and increased productivity, and say that new policies are needed urgently to dismantle systemic barriers stopping women from earning more. Those who aren’t in favor argue wage disparities reflect individual choices regarding career paths, work-life balance, and tenure, rather than systemic discrimination. They also point out that when adjusted for factors like job type, hours worked, and career breaks, the gap significantly narrows. Against this backdrop, we debate the question: Should We Address the Gender Wage Gap? Arguing Yes: Kadie Ward, Commissioner and Chief Administrative Officer of the Pay Equity Commission of Ontario Arguing No: Allison Schrager, Pension Economist, Bloomberg Opinion Contributor & Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute Nayeema Raza, Journalist at New York Magazine and Vox, is the guest moderator. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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0:00.0	Race the rudder. Raise the sails. Raise the sales.
0:05.0	Captain, an unidentified ship approaching. Over.
0:07.7	Roger that. Wait. Is that an enterprise sales solution?
0:12.7	Reach sales professionals, not professional sailors. With LinkedIn ads, you can target the right people by industry, job title and more.
0:19.0	Start converting your B2B audience into high-quality leads today. Spend 200 pounds on your first campaign and get a 200-pound credit for the next one. Go to LinkedIn.com slash lead to claim your offer. Terms and conditions apply. This is open to debate. I'm John Donvan. A recent Pew study tells us that in 2024, women earned 85 cents on the dollar compared to men,
0:38.4	not much better than 81 cents back in 2002.
0:41.4	And that is despite women's participation in the workforce hitting record highs in the past few years.
0:45.9	That is a wage gap, which we are revisiting with a debate we did last year, asking,
0:50.5	should we address the gender wage gap?
0:53.0	For this one, my colleague, Naima Reza moderates.
0:55.3	Naima is a journalist and host of the podcast.
0:57.6	Smart Girl, Dumb Questions.
0:59.3	On to the show.
1:01.5	One of the things I love about working with Open to Debate is that they don't pay me any less than the men.
1:06.3	And that's relevant because, according to research from the U.S. Department of Labor,
1:10.2	women are earning about 84 cents on the dollar to a from the U.S. Department of Labor, women are earning about
1:11.2	84 cents on the dollar to a man in the year 2021. And by that same measurement, it's been in the 80-odd
1:18.0	percent range for the last 20 years. Today, we're going to be tackling this question of should we
1:23.2	address the gender wage gap? I want to zoom in on that question because it's not really about
1:27.8	whether there's a gender wage gap to address. Our guests today actually agree on that fact.
1:32.7	They might have some quibbles about whether it's this big or that big, but the question is
1:37.9	whether policymakers should actually try to address the gender wage gap. So let me introduce
	...

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