Women Earn $1 Million Less Than Men In These 10 Fields

According to a new wage gap report from the Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce, "women simply can't win." More women than ever are majoring in fields traditionally dominated by men, but the report suggests that, "even when they do everything 'right' — choose a high-paying field of study, pursue a high-paying major within that field and get a job in a high-paying occupation — women still get paid less than their male peers."

Women Can’t Win: Despite Making Educational Gains and Pursuing High-Wage Majors, Women Still Earn Less than Men explores the complex set of reasons that have kept the gender wage gap in place. It found that 17 percent of workers in the field of engineering are women today, compared to just one percent in 1970. But women are still disproportionately concentrated in the lowest-earning fields — 76 percent of workers in the education field are women today, compared to 75 percent in 1970.

Within high-paying career fields, women generally are less likely to work in the highest-paying occupations compared to men, too. For example, only 27 percent of chief executive officers, 44 percent of lawyers and 43 percent of physicians and surgeons are women. Comparatively, 59 percent of market research analysts and marketing specialists, 85 percent of paralegals and legal assistants and 89 percent of registered nurses are women. 

Perhaps that's why women still make 81 cents to the male dollar.

But even women with the same college majors working in the same careers as men still only earn 92 cents for every male dollar. While women not only start with lower salaries, according to the report, their increase in pay is also lower over time.

"A man with a bachelor's degree will see his annual earnings increase by 87 percent over his career, but a woman with a bachelor's degree will only receive a 51 percent increase in her annual earnings over her career," the researchers write.

And this all means that men with bachelor degrees can earn $1 million more than women with bachelor degrees over the course of their careers. And, for graduate degree holders, the lifetime earnings differential between men and women is more than $1.6 million.

The wage gap is the widest among social science majors, standing at $1.1 millionfor those with bachelor degrees and $1.8 million for those with graduate degrees. Here are nine other fields in which the gender wage gap for graduate degree holders is $1 million or more:

Law and Public Policy
Wage gap for graduate degree holders: $1.02 million
Wage gap for bachelor's degree holders: $780,000

Architecture and Engineering
Wage gap for graduate degree holders: $1.13 million
Wage gap for bachelor's degree holders: $750,000

Agriculture and Natural Resources
Wage gap for graduate degree holders: $1.28 million
Wage gap for bachelor's degree holders: $460,000

Computer, Statistics and Mathematics
Wage gap for graduate degree holders: $1.32 million
Wage gap for bachelor's degree holders: $760,000

Psychology and Social Work
Wage gap for graduate degree holders: $1.4 million
Wage gap for bachelor's degree holders: $760,000

Physical Sciences
Wage gap for graduate degree holders: $1.41 million
Wage gap for bachelor's degree holders: $900,000

Business
Wage gap for graduate degree holders: $1.57 million
Wage gap for bachelor's degree holders: $1.06 million

Health
Wage gap for graduate degree holders: $1.74 million
Wage gap for bachelor's degree holders: $430,000

Biology and Life Sciences
Wage gap for graduate degree holders: $1.81 million
Wage gap for bachelor's degree holders: $570,000

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