In spite of women's real achievements in education, the gender pay gap stubbornly remains.
Although women on average have a higher level of education, the gender pay gap in the EU is 16.1% and the average gender pension gap is even greater, at 40.2%.
To see how much education matters to the pay gap, I held education levels constant across both race and gender and excluded workers aged 16-24 (who may not be finished with their schooling).
Earners with the least amount of education have the smallest pay gap – lack of an education affects everyone about equally, resulting in poverty.
In fact, black and Hispanic women vie for last place on the earnings pyramid at every level of education, and the gender pay gap actually increases with higher education for black, white, and Hispanic women.
Finally, the thesis then utilizes the Oaxaca-Blinder Decomposition to break down the price and composition effect of undergraduate education on the gender pay gap.
Maybe the Goals should have used test scores rather than enrollment rates to measure education, or the gender pay gap to measure equality, but those are just as jukable, just as subject to over-emphasis by logframes and donor tickboxes, as any other proxy.
So at first blush, education appears to explain the pay gap between the races (though not, importantly, the genders).
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: rather than passing laws to grow the economy, level the wealth playing field, close the gender pay gap, improve education, slow climate change, and a million other useful things, conservatives are trying to ensure their own victory by stripping away the rights of others.
