A Tuesday report from Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s office encouraged employers to publish their salary ranges as part of a series of recommendations to reduce pay disparity between what men and women earn in Connecticut.
The report was the product of a nine-month study on the gender wage gap, which was commissioned by Malloy and conducted by the departments of Labor and Economic and Community Development.
According to the report, women working full time in Connecticut earn an average of 22-24 percent less than their male counterparts. Even when contributing factors like education, experience, hours, and career choices were taken into account, the report suggested women still make 5-10 percent less than men.
The recommendations include raising awareness of the pay gap and promoting best practices among employers. They also suggest encouraging women to explore careers in science and technology fields. Another recommendation calls for a partnership between the Labor Department and the Permanent Commission on the Status of Women to conduct a deeper inquiry on the issue.
In a statement, Malloy said he believed the recommendations included in the report will be achievable and will help to reduce the pay gap.
“In this day and age it’s unacceptable for women, doing the same work, to earn less than men for no reason other than being a woman,” he said.
However, Teresa Younger, executive director of the Permanent Commission on the Status of Women, said there’s a lot of work to be done on the issue and the recommendations released Tuesday will not solve the problem.
“This report is a good first step, but no one is under any delusions its recommendations will solve the decades-long problem of pay inequity,” she said in a statement.
Younger said she was glad the recommendations called for taking a more detailed look at the problem. She said collecting unemployment insurance information on workers based on their jobs and tracking how employers are addressing the issue will help.
“It’s a bold step to be looking at the private sector in a struggling economy, but we believe pay equity is a driver of economic growth, not a hindrance to it. As women make most of a family’s purchasing decisions and are increasingly the primary breadwinner, closing the pay gap will bolster not only women’s economic security, but that of entire families, too,” she said.
