The Civil Rights Act of 1964 means it’s illegal for an employer to discriminate against anyone due to their sex, race, color, or religion. Additionally, in June 2020, the Supreme Court added further protection regarding gender identity and sexual orientation.
Despite these precedents, women are still subject to an often significant wage deficit compared to male earnings: on average, women earn 83¢ for every $1 a man makes, while 41% of women report feeling discriminated against due to their gender during a job interview.
This study will uncover the industries and roles subject to the widest gender pay gaps, the states that feature the widest male/female wage disparities, how ethnic and racial groups compare when it comes to gender wage differentials, and the extent to which female lifetime earnings are affected.
The Gender Pay Gap
As of September 2025, women aged 16+ made up 57.4% of the U.S. labor force.
Yet, despite pay discrimination being illegal for many decades, gender-based wage disparities persist across the country’s working industries. Many women still lack access to the information they need to identify discrimination, while fear of retaliation, mandatory arbitration clauses, and nondisclosure agreements discourage them from making justifiable complaints.
Additionally, the enforcement of equal pay laws often relies on individual complaints (rather than proactive audits), placing the burden on workers rather than employers and allowing systemic inequities to prevail.
So, a gender pay gap endures. And there are two distinct gender pay gaps to bear in mind: uncontrolled and controlled.
The uncontrolled gender pay gap measures overall male/female earnings irrespective of job type or role, often referred to as the ‘opportunity gap.’ Based on 2025 figures, women earn $0.83 for every dollar earned by men, a 17% earnings gap driven by both the jobs women hold and the related compensation. (This figure remains unchanged from 2024.)
The controlled gender pay gap compares male/female earnings in similar roles that require comparable qualifications. If we adjust pay for job title and other factors, women earn $0.99 of the male dollar, clearly showing that women are paid less for the same or similar work. (This, too, is unchanged from 2024 and previous years.)
While the controlled gap highlights pay inequities within equivalent roles, the uncontrolled gap reveals a broader, wider wage imbalance.
And even if equal pay were to be established across identical roles, the wide-reaching, uncontrolled gap would continue to reflect how women’s work is undervalued.
And when we take a closer look at the specific occupational roles that feature the widest gender pay imbalances, the gulf between numbers is often staggering.
The Ten Occupations Featuring The Widest Gender Pay Imbalance
A look at the 10 U.S. occupations that feature the largest gender wage gaps reveals that women experience the greatest pay disparities in some of the country’s highest-earning, most specialized professions.
Dentists represent the widest gender gap, with women earning $49,334 less than men per year, despite doing the same job in a highly regulated medical field.
Female chief executives earn almost $39,400 less annually than their male counterparts, highlighting inequities at the very top of organizational leadership.
Healthcare roles dominate much of the list, despite the industry being heavily represented by its female workforce, proving that pay inequity is not restricted to traditionally male-dominated industries.
Female dental hygienists earn almost $31,000 less per year than men, while women working as cardiovascular technologists and technicians face a yearly shortfall of $28,700.
Similarly, female diagnostic medical sonographers earn $27,000 less than men.
There are also pronounced pay gaps in technical and analytical fields. Women employed as database administrators and architects earn over $28,000 less than men per year, even though such roles demand advanced technical expertise and are central to modern data-driven organizations.
Beyond healthcare and tech, there are significant gender pay disparities in fields such as chiropractic care, criminal investigation, cost estimation, and talent management, with women earning between $19,000 and $28,000 less than men every year.
Overall, the wage disparities mean women lose tens of thousands of dollars every year despite carrying out the same professional roles across healthcare, technology, public safety, and business leadership.
And, over a full career, such disparities can represent a gap running to hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars in lost earnings.
Gender Lifetime Earning Disparities
Our analysis of the ten occupations featuring the widest gender pay imbalance shows the extent to which women face severe pay disparities in highly specialized roles. And over time, that can mean staggering amounts of lost income.
Here are some examples of the career-spanning female wage shortfall in various roles (figures represent 30 years of work).
- Dentists: $1.5 million
- Chief executives: $1.2 million
- Dental hygienists / cardiovascular technologists / diagnostic medical sonographers: $800,000 to $900,000
- Database administrators and architects earn over $800,000 to $850,000.
Every year, U.S. female employees lose a combined $1.7 trillion, a huge deficit that also negatively impacts families, businesses, and the national economy. For the women subject to lost income, it seriously hampers their long-term financial security and independence.
And while we’ve looked closely at the national gender pay gap and roles featuring particularly notable disparities, the problem varies from state to state.
The 10 States With the Largest Gender Wage Gaps
If we closely consider state-level gender wage data, it’s clear that women suffer the biggest pay disparities in some of the nation’s highest-income states.
For example, in top-ranked Virginia, women earn more than $42,000 less per year than men. Things are nearly as bad in Utah and Washington, where annual gender pay gaps exceed $39,000.
And there are also significant gender wage disparities in major economic hubs like Texas ($36, 684), New Jersey ($34,555), and California ($33,653), despite robust job markets and high overall wages.
Even states that feature relatively progressive labor policies, such as Massachusetts ($32,594) and Maryland ($29,753), are subject to wide wage disparities, while in New York, the gap is $24,652.
The District of Columbia, which features one of the highest median wage levels in the country, completes the list of the ten states with the widest gender pay disparities. Its male/female pay gap of $20,414 demonstrates that high state earnings alone don’t guarantee pay equity.
Overall, the widest gender pay gaps exist in states that feature the highest national salaries, a fact that compounds the long-term financial consequences for women.
And for women of some races and ethnicities, the problem is especially pronounced.
The Gender Wage Gap: Racial Disparities
If we consider racial disparities when we examine gender pay differences, further levels of inequality emerge, underscoring how gender and race intersect across the U.S. workforce.
Native American women suffer the largest gender wage gap, earning just 75 cents for every dollar White men earn. Hispanic women (78 cents to a White male dollar) and Black women (79 cents) are also significantly short-changed.
Even White women, who on average earn more than women of color, make just 82 cents for every dollar White men earn, highlighting that gender-based pay inequity is a factor across all racial groups.
While Pacific Islander (88 cents of the White male dollar) and Asian (95 cents) women earn considerably more, this doesn’t indicate any form of pay equity. Instead, it emphasizes the volatile, seemingly arbitrary nature of gender pay disparity across industries, job roles, and geographic regions.
Overall, racial wage gaps offer further confirmation that women (in particular, women of color) continue to earn substantially less than White men across the workforce. And such conditions are part of an endemic U.S. working issue.
Occupational Segregation in the U.S. Workforce
The large racial and gender pay gaps in the U.S. are the result of many different intersecting structural forces. Women of color, for example, face what researchers describe as a double disadvantage: they’re paid less than men due to gender wage disparities, and they’re paid less than White workers due to their race.
One major factor is occupational segregation, which means the concentration of different demographic groups in different types of jobs.
Women of color are disproportionately represented in lower-paying occupations and underrepresented in higher-paying fields: this naturally depresses their overall earnings compared to White men.
Research shows that occupational segregation by race and gender significantly affects wages, with Black and Latina women particularly affected by job stratification and limited access to high-wage industries.
Workplace discrimination also plays a role. Women of color, even those with an abundance of educational qualifications and experience, earn less than equivalently qualified men. This makes it clear that wage differences are not fully explained by human capital alone. Workplace discrimination creates biases in hiring, promotion, and pay negotiation, and restricts advancement opportunities.
And motherhood only makes things worse for working women.
How Motherhood Worsens the Gender Wage Gap
Study data shows that the gender pay gap widens when women become mothers. Most mothers remain employed while raising children, with roughly seven in ten mothers with children working either full– or part–time.
Additionally, 41% of families with children rely on women as the primary or sole earner. This statistic highlights the disconnect between women’s economic importance at home and the pay disparities they continue to face at work.
Before becoming parents, both men and women increasingly move into higher-paying roles, either through promotions or by switching employers. Yet, after their children arrive, men generally continue a seamless career ascent, with women more likely to shift to lower-paying employers or reduced hours to accommodate caregiving responsibilities.
This shift is often driven by the high cost of child care, which now averages roughly $15,570 per year, or $1,300 per month (per child). This makes job flexibility a financial necessity rather than a choice for many mothers.
Research shows that differences in employers account for roughly one-third of the gender earnings gap ten years after a child’s birth.
Among parents, women earn just $0.75 for every dollar earned by fathers under the uncontrolled measure.
By contrast, the pay gap is smaller among workers without children. Women without children earn $0.88 for every dollar earned by childless men under the uncontrolled measure, suggesting women with children face more barriers to accessing higher-paying or more demanding roles.
However, the persistence of a wage gap even among non-parents emphasizes the ‘childbearing penalty’: the economic penalty women face based on no more than the expectation that they may one day become mothers.
And if they do become mothers, women are more likely than fathers to reduce their working hours to look after their children; subsequently, they face persistent workplace biases due to a perception that they’re ‘less committed’ or ‘less available for work’.
Wage Gender Discrimination: An Enduring American Problem
Despite decades of federal protections prohibiting workplace discrimination, gender-based wage gaps remain deeply embedded across the U.S. workforce. Women, who make up more than 57% of the U.S. labor force, continue to earn just 83 cents for every dollar earned by men, a disparity that has been in place for decades.
Women face persistent pay discrimination due to a combination of structural barriers, workplace bias, and deeply embedded gender norms that shape how work is valued and rewarded.
Women (especially women of color) are more likely to occupy lower-paying roles and less likely to be found in higher-paying leadership and technical roles, a pattern driven by occupational segregation and unequal access to advancement opportunities.
Caregiving expectations, penalties associated with motherhood, and slower wage growth over time further widen career earnings gaps, reinforcing long-term economic inequality. Overall, women lose $1.7 trillion a year in wages, compared to male workers.
Overall, the wage disparities mean women lose tens of thousands of dollars every year despite carrying out the same professional roles across healthcare, technology, public safety, and business leadership
Ultimately, our study findings confirm that gender pay inequity is not the result of individual career choices. It’s due to long-standing systemic barriers that continue to undervalue women’s work, restrict long-term financial security, and perpetuate economic inequality across industries, regions, and generations.
Without Government-endorsed changes to employment law, enduring problems will continue to strangle women’s earning power.
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