Talk:Gender pay gap in the United States/Archive 3

Two removed paragraphs
I decided to remove two paragraphs that I think are completely off topic:

"According to a 2008 study by University of Illinois sociologist John Dencker, women can make inroads into male-dominated management ranks as companies scale-back workforces via downsizing. The study shows that firms apparently make an effort to balance gender inequities during staff shakeups. Women entered management ranks at rates up to 25% higher than men in some grade levels after downsizing, which created supervisory openings as older male managers took company-offered buyouts. Overall, women accounted for nearly 36% of the company’s managers after restructuring, compared with an average of about 24% during the period from 1967 to 1993, according to the study. However, women's sharp gains during downsizing are short-lived and the gap closed within a year or two as management jobs became scarcer in the aftermath of restructuring. Furthermore, Dencker found that women made less headway into top levels of management and that a host of factors slowed the climb up the corporate ladder for women, who make up half of the nation's management workforce but hold only 15% of top leadership positions. 'There remains this sort of glass-ceiling effect,' he said. 'Women have more rungs to climb, so their rates of promotion relative to men slow as they move up the corporate ladder.'"

"In 2005, wives earned more than their husbands in 25.5% of dual-income families, and 33% of all families where wives, but not necessarily husbands, received income. According to the Shriver Report by the Center for American Progress and Maria Shriver, in 2008, mothers were the major breadwinners in 40% of families."

The first paragraph deals with promotions and the glass ceiling and doesn't even mention women's earnings, let alone women's earnings relative to men's. It says that women are promoted at higher rates during downsizing but is says nothing about women's earning relative to men's.

The gender pay gap is calculated using median yearly earnings (Census Bureau) or median weekly earnings (Bureau of Labor Stats). This is what the gender pay gap is: female-to-male earnings ratio for full-time, year round workers. The second paragraph does not mention if it included part-time workers or not. The second paragraph is simply about earnings, not specifically about the gender pay gap although it does mention men (husbands) and women (wives). But the data in the source are not restricted to full-time, year round workers. --Sonicyouth86 (talk) 16:55, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Needs history details
It would be great to see more historical background from the 19th century and pre-WW2 era added to the article. OttawaAC (talk) 02:35, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Minimum wage/lowering wages.
Has anyone ever seen any study/article talk about how minimum wage laws affect the gap, and also how the lowering of wages in many jobs is affecting it?

What I'm thinking of here, is that most of my early jobs were unskilled jobs. We have had a minimum wage in my country (not the USA, although it's my understanding that there are minimum wage laws there also) for many years, and so for those kind of jobs, everyone just gets paid the same amount, minimum wage. There seems to be no room for a gap in pay (although there may still be big gaps in who is hired) in this situation. I've noticed in the last few years also, that a lot of semi-skilled jobs have been lowering their wages, due to competition from other countries, etc. For example, after I went back to college, I got into a job that paid a bit more than minimum wage (I'm a very junior 'web developer' (php/javascript/sql/etc)), but due to competition from developing countries, this job has also now slipped down to an almost negligible amount above minimum wage, leaving only room for a minuscule potential pay gap. This seems to be common in a number of other industries too.

Sorry for rambling, but it was something I missed in the article, and I think it would be a good addition to the article if there is any good research discussing these ideas. Jacobitten (talk) 16:23, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Height
There is no mention that people get paid more because they are taller independent of gender. Average US adult male 5'9.5", female 5'4" 5.5" taller = $4339.5 per annum, independent of gender         http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200310/tall-people-get-paid-more The studies quoted in this article are not accounting for height. This accounts for more than half the difference. QuentinUK (talk) 02:52, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

This is not an encyclopedia article
Why is this even on Wikipedia? This is not an encyclopedic article. IMO, this entire page should be deleted. At the least, I think this is an overcategorization if the wiki staff REALLY thinks this content belongs in an encyclopedia. I am nominating this page for deletion. 206.255.63.207 (talk) 04:30, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm not going to complete this nomination because it has no chance whatsoever of succeeding. Please see Deletion policy for examples of some valid reasons for deleting pages. Hut 8.5 10:44, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Gender inequality in the United States
I've started a parent article to this one. Any help appreciated, I'd like to DYK it in the next few days. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 13:00, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Employer discrimination at resume stage?
Our current citation for this points to, which seems to be a POV source and I'm not even sure constitutes a reliable one. I'm sure there must be some better primary sources we can use, anyone want to take a crack at it?

While randomly Googling this, I came across this working paper, which seems to contradict the idea of contemporary discrimination at resume review stage, but regardless of its inclusion as a source, has citations that may be useful.

Cheers, Vectro (talk) 21:28, 26 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Actually, looking more closely, the current claim is not even supported by the current citation. I'm going to remove it, but if you have good reliable sources, please restore it. I'm sure they are out there. Vectro (talk) 21:30, 26 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Actually, the claim is supported by two large sections, Bias favoring men and Motherhood penalty. You see that peer-reviewed research by David Neumark about pseudo-job seekers with identical résumés ? Or that peer-reviewed research by Shelly Correll about fictitious applicants with fictitious identical résumés ? The lead section must summarize the article and the sourced claim that you removed, claiming "POV source", does summarize the article. Also the review by the US Joint Economic Commission isn't a primary source, it's a secondary source because it summarizes and interprets available research. --Sonicyouth86 (talk) 09:25, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

Requested move 26 March 2015

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: Move. Cúchullain t/ c 13:36, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

Male–female income disparity in the United States → Gender pay gap in the United States – "Gender pay gap" is the commonly recognizable name compared to "male-female income disparity". The European Commission uses the term and so do the Canadian, UK, Australian, and American governments. The new title would also help maintain consistency between the main article Gender pay gap and the country specific pages Gender pay gap in Australia and Gender pay gap in Russia. Sonicyouth86 (talk) 19:09, 26 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Support. What a ridonkulous article title. Red Slash 21:29, 26 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Support - The suggested name is the common name and more recognizable. Mbcap (talk) 22:06, 26 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Support - For consistency with similar articles. ONR (talk) 00:04, 27 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Support: clearly gender pay gap is a more appropriate phrasing. Ebonelm (talk) 21:10, 27 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Support. gobonobo  + c 09:18, 28 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Support for consistency. Faceless Enemy (talk) 18:46, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Support consistency, as cited above --Sanam (talk) 12:17, 4 April 2015 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

percents of percents, explicit math (and ps sourcing)

 * A typical quote from the wiki article reads, "The portion of the pay gap that remains unexplained after all other factors are taken into account is 5 percent one year after graduation and 12 percent 10 years after graduation. These unexplained gaps are evidence of discrimination, which remains a serious problem for women in the work force." ... So then, if the pay gap is around 18%, and 12 percent of that is unexplained and assumed to be attributable either to discrimination or some unmeasured factor (?), this particular study suggests that after 10 years, the "gender-driven discrimination charge" (not the pay gap) is about 2.16% of men's mean wages. The Wikipedia article needs to spell out these numbers (or similar, perhaps more recent) quite clearly in the WP:LEDE and throughout (See WP:SUMMARYISNOTOR). The WP:LEDE might include a high-low range of the results of any number of studies; the studies themselves should be presented in body text. I am not suggesting that readers are unable to do this simple math for themselves. I am instead positing a difference between active readers and passive readers, and assuming that the latter greatly outnumber the former. Most people will assume that a 20% gap means something that amounts to very nearly 20% worth of discrimination. [OH PS while I'm here, the three cites placed after that quote are not the quoted Dey and Hill source, which is puzzling because that source is freely available here ]. &bull; Arch&diams;Reader 13:15, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

Question...
According to the section "Explaining the gender pay gap," some studies purport to show that, even after accounting for "possible explanatory factors such as occupation, age, experience, education, time in the workforce, childcare, average hours worked, grades while in college, and other factors," women were still paid about twenty percent less than men. So the question that screams out to me is, assuming this is true, then why, in a capitalist economy, would companies be hiring men?...

If a company can hire a woman and pay her 20% less than a man with the same qualifications, experience, and level of productivity then it would make no business sense to hire men at all until after every available woman in that field had been hired. There would then be a 0% unemployment rate among women who were qualified to in any field that also hired male workers.

Has this issue been addressed by academics or notable commentators on either side of this issue? If so, then it would probably make sense to include such analysis... -217.225.135.187 (talk) 11:36, 19 March 2016 (UTC)

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Pop-up store
I moved the discussion of the pop-up store out of impact section and into "Popular culture reactions". I actually think this should be deleted since it feels a bit like advertising and I'm not clear if it is actually noteworthy enough. I'll wait to delete in case others feel it should retained. If it is retained, I'm not sure this section I've put it in is best and perhaps we should abbreviate the discussion a bit. -Pengortm (talk) 17:14, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

The extent to which discrimination plays a role in explaining gender wage
This passage: “The extent to which discrimination plays a role in explaining gender wage disparities is somewhat difficult to quantify, due to a number of potentially confounding variables. Discrimination must thus be assumed to exist and be statistically significant despite the unquantified value of the effect and it being one of many potential other unknown contributing factors” was just labeled as failing verification. I've just skimmed the relevant chapter and believe it is a fair summary of what the author states. Here are a few relevant passages from the text:
 * “But whether, or to what degree, employer discrimination exists or can explain much of the male-female income differences is a question rather than a foregone conclusion because, for whatever reasons, differences in job qualifications between women and men have often been demonstrable and substantial. Moreover, these differences have changed over time, so that a lessening of income disparities between the sexes cannot be automatically attributed to a lessening of employer discrimination when it may also be due to a lessening of differences in education, job experience, or availability to work outside the home.”
 * “Ideally, we would like to be able to compare those women and men who are truly comparable in education, skills, experience, continuity of employment, and full-time or part-time work, among other variables, and then determine whether employers hire, pay, and promote women the same as they do comparable men. At the very least, we might then see in whatever differences in hiring, pay and promotions might exist a measure of how much employer discrimination exists. Given the absence or imperfections of data on some of these variables, the most that we can reasonably expect is some measure of whatever residual economic differences between women and men remain after taking into account those variables which can be measured with some degree of accuracy and reliability. That residual would then give us the upper limit of the combined effect of employer discrimination plus whatever unspecified or unmeasured variables might also exist. However, even if we were to find zero economic differences between those women and men who were truly comparable, that would not mean that women and men as a whole had the same income or the same likelihood of being hired or promoted, if the sexes as a whole were distributed differently between full-time and part-time employment or in different fields or levels of education or in other ways that affect people’s economic prospects. In short, even an absence of discrimination would not mean an absence of male-female economic differences.”

-Pengortm (talk) 17:25, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

Removal/modification of estimate for discriminatory component of gender pay gap
First off I apologize for any formatting issues, this is the first time I have used Wikipedia's comment tools.

I am talking specifically about the following line,

"The estimates for the discriminatory component of the gender pay gap include 5%[4]:2 and 7%[3]:9 and in at least one study grow as men and women's careers progress.[3]:93"

The first cited fact, that an estimation for the gender pay gap includes 5%, cites Just Talking, a public radio show. The show itself states that the fact came from "The American Association of University Women". (transcript here, page 2 http://www.justicetalking.org/transcripts/070528_ERA_transcript.pdf) I tried to find the study from the AAUW, http://www.aauw.org/, but could not find one. Particularly because it was not named nor specifically dated in the transcript. All that we know is that the study came out shortly before 5/28/2007.

The second and third cited facts come from the following source, http://www.jec.senate.gov/public/?a=Files.Serve&File_id=9118a9ef-0771-4777-9c1f-8232fe70a45c, pages 9 and 92. The fact, that an estimation for the gender pay gap includes 7%, correctly sites the source, but the source incorrectly cites their source. From the JEC page we can see that their source was the GAO. Specifically:

Government Accountability Office (GAO). April, 2009. Women’s Pay: Gender Pay Gap in the Federal Workforce Narrows as Differences in Occupation, Education, and Experience Diminish. Washington, D.C.: Government Accountability Office. (http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-09-279).

First off, should people decide that this fact should be kept, it should be mentioned that 7% is the amount attributable to discriminatory practices in the public sector. (According to the JEC) However, when we look at the JEC source and read the pdf at the GAO we can see on page 3 the following:

Factors for which we lacked data or are difficult to measure, such as work experience outside the federal government and discrimination, may account for some or all of the remaining 7 cent gap.

The JEC and the Wikipedia article are worded such that discrimination accounts for the entirety of the 7% gap, when the original source uses it as one example of 'factors that they lacked data on or are difficult to measure'. Being that knowledge ranks very high on factors that affect compensation, it would be wrong to assume discrimination makes up the majority/nearly all of that 7%.

The second fact referencing the JEC, that the estimate for the discriminatory component grows as careers progress is also incorrect. On page 92, it states that:

The unexplained portion of the pay gap also grew over time, increasing from 2 cents in 1988 to 9 cents in 2007, as shown in figure 2. However, other factors not captured by our data could account for some of the unexplained pay gap.

While it would be correct to use this as a reference that the gender gap increases as careers progress, it would be incorrect to use it as a reference that gender gap due to discrimination increases as careers progress. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kiklion0199 (talk • contribs) 00:04, 18 October 2012 (UTC)


 * I agree that this should be removed or at least moved to a different part of the article. The introductory paragraphs of this article seem to rely too much on this one report from the US Congress Joint Economic Committee and does not tap into the greater body of literature available on this subject. In the end, the opening paragraphs seems misleading in the fact that it doesn't mention how the existence of a large gender wage gap due to discrimination is heavily disputed. Blossomonte (talk) 08:57, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

The author references the JEC and GAO on statistics that pinpoint the gender pay gap, but when exploring the author's citations, the information on the pages it references does not directly correlate with the statement on the Wiki page. For example, under the "Impact" heading, and then under "Economy" subheading, the author cites a Huffington Post article that does not explicitly include the statistics referenced in the Wiki paragraph. Lamannie (talk) 21:48, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

Under the heading "Sources", and under the subheading "Hours Worked", the author explains the significance of the argument that the sexes are likely to work a different amount of hours. The references are outdated, specifically reference 52 ad 53, "Emplyoment Outlook. Paris: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development", and "Gender Differences in Pay", respectively -- these references are about 15 years old and information regarding hours worked and occupational differences could have changed since then.Lamannie (talk) 21:55, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

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Misattribution of racial disparities in income to the gender pay gap
Forgive me if this has already been covered, but I'm going to go through the article to clean up statements like this:
 * In the U.S., using median hourly earnings statistics (not controlling for job type differences) the gender pay gap is largest for Latina women (58%) and second-largest for Black women (65%), while white women have a pay gap of 82%.

All of these percentages describe income relative to white men. The Pew article cited never describes these gaps explicitly as "gender pay gaps," and for good reason—they are at the intersection of both a gender pay gap and a racial pay gap. Describing these simply as gender pay gaps is akin to describing the difference in size between a French house and an American mall as a national building size disparity. The gender pay gap for black women can only describe a difference in pay between black women and black men.

As another example, consider that white men are killed by police at a higher rate than black women are. Describing this disparity using only one demographic factor (i.e., calling this a racial disparity, without mentioning gender) would lead to the erroneous conclusion that white people are at killed by police at a higher rate than black people.

I'm going to rewrite statements like this to better reflect the nature of the comparison being made, but I just wanted to make my reasoning clear on the talk page.Hellosparta (talk) 15:42, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

The word "choices" in the lede

 * However, after adjusting for choices made by male and female workers in college major, occupation, working hours, and parental leave, multiple studies find that pay rates between males and females varied by 5–6.6% or, females earning 94 cents to every dollar earned by their male counterparts.

Working hours and job are not entirely the individual's choice. The employer also has some say in that. Do the sources reflect the use of "choices", or should the term be "differences"? --72.226.86.106 (talk) 06:10, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

Legalities of Wage Gap
The myth of the wage gap can be dispelled when taking the Equal Pay Act of 1963 into consideration, signed by President John F. Kennedy.

(Mi600740 (talk) 22:14, 3 November 2017 (UTC))

A lot of bias in this article due to assumptions of innately equivalent psychology between the sexes
This entire article wreaks of blank slatism. Just a cursory glance at pretty much any paragraph in the "Explaining the gender pay gap" section will reveal the stench of the biased assumption that men and women have innately identical psychologies and thus that observed differences between men and women in pay negotiation, aptitude in STEM fields, promotions, etc. are due to sexist "stereotypes" and not innate differences in the temperaments, skills, and preferences of men and women. The existence of innate psychological differences between the sexes does not preclude the existence of genuinely unfair discriminatory practices in employment, the point is merely that it's insufficient to conclude that statistical differences in behaviour and outcomes between men and women must be due to discrimination. Until you statistically control for psychological differences between the sexes (especially innate differences) you simply cannot conclude that observed disparities are due to discrimination. That's not opinion. That's logic. Aelius28 (talk) 06:25, 5 August 2014 (UTC)


 * "That's not opinion. That's logic." Well, you're going to have to provide a source for that. From what I gather in the "explaining" section is that: the more variables you control for, the lower the gap gets. 146.115.161.4 (talk) 23:33, 4 December 2014 (UTC)


 * "(especially innate differences)" Your preoccupation with this concept demonstrates a level of bias way beyond anything presented in the article, and your use of the phrase "cursory glance" is pretentious. --98.110.167.54 (talk) 01:05, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

The CPS data comes with error ranges. The error ranges are large enough that estimates for one time period are used with caution ( except by politicians). If the CPS, with about 60,000 sample size) is used with caution, I am certain that 2 - 9,000 sample sizes are inadequate for ... well actually not much. 24.128.186.53 (talk) 01:34, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

This article includes many reliable sources of statistical information; however, it does sound bias in that the author accounts much of the difference in pay gap to differences between the sexes that are not explained in the article. For example, at the end of the first paragraph, the author speculates that 6% of the difference in pay is due to "deficiency in salary negotiation skills", - I think it would be appropriate to add a source that explains if negotiation skills have been proven to be different between the sexes. Lamannie (talk) 21:40, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

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Barriers in science
Here are a few more sources which we should consider adding to the Barriers in science section. I don't have the time at the moment, but hope someone else does or that this serves as a reminder for me later. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01532/full and https://www.pnas.org/content/108/8/3157.full  -Pengortm (talk) 02:54, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

"However, this studies results have been met with skepticism from other researchers, since it contradicts other studies on the issue."
This sentence is blatantly unscientific and should not be included.

Imagine someone saying "the trial of this drug has been met with skepticism because it contradicts other trials." It's ridiculous. Contradiction of other studies is the part of scientific progress. 2605:6000:1706:9FE9:59B0:A9CC:A6EA:D216 (talk) 00:08, 30 September 2019 (UTC)
 * If it were simply an outlier study than I think we should not even mention it in wikipedia. My reading is that it contradicts some studies which generally tend to show bias against women--but this study is particularly about women getting into tenure track positions in STEM. In any case, I am inclined to think this passage should be excluded unless multiple clear directly contradictory studies are specifically pointed to. -Pengortm (talk) 02:26, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

Parental leave effects
A source which might be good to integrate in on parental leave effects on pay gap: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/11/upshot/paid-family-leave-research-surprise.html?emc=rss&partner=rss -Pengortm (talk) 22:07, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

Myth
The wage gap is complete myth. It's their work that determines their salary not society itself. Women are more likley to take time off from work which effects their pay. Also, we don't need feminism in the US. Also, no women aren't getting payed less because of sexism.

(Mi600740 (talk) 22:11, 3 November 2017 (UTC))
 * "Also, we don't need feminism in the US." This has no relevance to anything. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.98.170.118 (talk) 23:25, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

Agree, this article is complete bullshit. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.239.66.5 (talk) 03:41, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

Recent addition and reversion
[Copied from Avatar317's talk page to here, because this is a better place to discuss this sort of thing where other editors can weigh in and see what discussion happened.] --- Avatar317 (talk) 00:08, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

It's not about finding sources that say what I want them to say, it's finding an accurate way to summarise the plethora of sources that are out there on the subject without ignoring them. The bottom line is that there are lots of good sources out there showing one way or another that the gap has either stalled or is/could be outright declining in recent years, from here to here to here to here to here to here if you don't want to use the Forbes articles, which I totally understand. But the bottom line is that the sources don't reflect a consensus that COVID-19 is the sole cause of the widening or stagnating gap, and the ones that do link it to COVID don't just link it to daycare centers and schools being closed in particular, hence the wording needs to be more encompassing. I prefer my wording but if you really want to include COVID then perhaps we could combine the two and say something like "Since 2018 however, there are signs that it could be widening again, with the COVID-19 pandemic largely attributed to the reversal." Or something. What do you think? Davefelmer (talk) 23:55, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
 * 1) It's not "what sources I want to use", Reliable Sources are determined by consensus: See: WP:FORBESCON and you can see the listing for Forbes contributors. 2) Any statement added to Wikipedia must be supported by the sources YOU INCLUDE as sources, not some grouping of other sources you've read. 3) The first three sources you list are acceptable (CNBC, NPR, and CNET), but the others are not news organizations reporting on an issue, and wouldn't be considered Reliable Sources: beckershospitalreview.com talks ONLY about physician salaries, this is NOT generalizable to everyone; the kent source is a comment article, and the diversityq is an advocacy organization.


 * I'll add one sentence to the article using the CNBC and CNET sources, and leave the COVID statement intact, now also supported by the CNBC source. We can't OVER-generalize from sources which only talk about small segments of the labor market to everyone. --- Avatar317 (talk) 06:11, 22 January 2021 (UTC)


 * In general it's a good idea to start with stuff like this in the body; per WP:LEADFOLLOWSBODY the lead is supposed to reflect it anyway, but beyond that the body gives us more space to add sources, go into depth on context, and generally write a good paragraph or section before determining how to condense it into a sentence for the lead. Currently the article is extremely sparse on efforts to narrow the gap and on its long-terms historical trends (the latter isn't mentioned at all), so we could expand the section on the former or add a new section for the latter, or both. Writing that section would give us a better sense of how recent trends in the wage gap fit into the history, how significant they are, if they belong in the lead, and if so, how to cover them. --Aquillion (talk) 17:38, 23 January 2021 (UTC)


 * I've just had a look at your added sentence and while I appreciate that you've incorporated some of the sources I previously introduced, your wording of 'since 2018, the gender pay gap has not decreased' is not NPOV and not reflective of the source describing it. The source uses the language "no progress has been made" in its title and then is critical of the stagnation multiple times throughout its body, so I'm gonna rephrase it to reflect that.
 * The source also discusses other reasons for why gender wage gap growth has fallen off through the pandemic, for reasons other than the one explicitly and specifically focused on within the page text, including that women have been disproportionately impacted by furloughs and because they hold jobs in fields disproportionately shrunk by the nature of the pandemic. Yes we shouldnt over generalise at times or from some of the sources I provided before that focused on particular fields but from the ones linked now, they discuss multiple angles for the gap stagnation/rise and that should be reflected rather one of the reasons in one of the sources focused on in an extremely specific way. Davefelmer (talk) 20:12, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
 * @Davefelmer: Your reasons for this change should be discussed on the Talk page FOR THIS ARTICLE, not on my Talk page; while your reasons are valid, your edit should be one which ADDS to the explanation as to why this is happening, rather than giving the reader LESS information and no idea of why the gap might be increasing. Also "stagnated" does not accurately describe what happens as well as "not decreased". ---Avatar317(talk) 22:15, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I didn't see the transfer of our initial discussion onto this page, but I'm happy to move the rest of it here. Anyways, Avatar317, I hear your point about feeling that "stagnated" isn't the best word to use here. I thus instead propose that to avoid any further confusion or bringing in our own interpretations, we simply stick with the wording and language of the sources as much as possible and say "Since 2018 however, no progress has been made on closing the gender pay gap further, and the COVID-19 pandemic may cause the gap to widen due to it resulting in women being disproportionately furloughed, female-dominated job fields being disproportionately shrunk and because women have been disproportionately leaving or taking more time off work to care for their children at home (due to school and day-care closures) than have men."
 * This way we remove the term 'stagnated', use almost the exact language of the source, and cover a wider array of reasons given in the sources to provide more information for the reader rather than less and rather than just disproportionately spotlighting one of the reasons given. What do you think? And Pengortm feel free to chip in here too, since you also didn't like the use of 'stagnated'. Davefelmer (talk) 00:25, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * That's much better wording. I support that. Thanks for discussing! --- Avatar317 (talk) 21:09, 28 January 2021 (UTC)