A 15-country study led by UC Irvine made two discoveries as to why the salaries of men and women are just not matching up on the job. “About 50 percent of the gender inequality in pay that we see is due to differences in pay for people who are doing the same work for the same employer, and the other half is due to these kinds of sorting practices where people are differentially sorted into different jobs,” Penner explains. Lead researcher UC Irvine sociologist Andrew Penner tells KNX there needs to be more legislation ensuring equal pay in the workplace and transparency to fix the problem. “Having everyone know what everyone else earns is quite powerful in thinking about enforcement of equal pay for equal work and thinking about transparency, and things like that I think are really important for the future of gender equality, in addition of course to thinking about hiring practices and discrimination and promotion.” Penner says the U.S. was nowhere near the leader in gender pay equity of the nations studied, especially when it comes to family policy. 

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