Liz Watson, Senior Advisor

When I was a teenager road constructions signs around my town read: “MEN WORKING.” I wrote our local newspaper outraged about the message that sends to women and girls: good-paying construction jobs are not jobs for women. Friends told me not to worry – those signs weren’t such a big deal. But the hard truth is that occupational segregation is very bad for women.

Those “MEN WORKING” signs remain a pretty darn accurate reflection of who actually works in construction. In fact, women made up the same measly percentage of workers in construction trades and related occupations in 2010 that they did in 1983 – 2.6%!

Throughout the labor market women are clustered in jobs that are primarily done by women, many of which pay low wages. Nearly 40% of women work in occupations that are at least 75% female, and women make up the majority of workers in the 10 largest occupations that pay under $10 an hour. According to the Institute for Women's Policy Research (IWPR), progress in the 70s and 80s toward integrating occupations stalled out in the mid-90s. 

It's Equal Pay Day -- the day in the year when women's wages finally catch up to men's from the previous year. For the occasion, NWLC has released a number of new fact sheets explaining the persistent wage gap and its impact on women and families. You'll see that today women still make $.77 for every dollar the typical man makes. There are lots of reasons we need to close the wage gap. Among the most important: it's just not right. It's hard to say it better than Donna Summer in She Works Hard for the Money.

Summer wrote this song about Onetta, a bathroom attendant she met at a restaurant who worked for "little money, just tips for pay." Like Onetta, millions of women are still clustered in low-wage jobs working hard for little pay, with women making up nearly 2/3 of workers paid the minimum wage. Fair pay would make a world of difference to these women and their families.