Labor Department's National Longitudinal Survey of Youth questioned 12000 people who were followed during the period between 1979 and 2004. The average age of survey participants was from 14 to 22 when the survey just started and from 43 to 51 at the end of the survey. Researchers adjusted all parameters to make sure that work responsibilities, schedule, the level education and experience are equal for all participants.
During the entire period of the study researchers saw significant changes for both sexes. Salaries of men with traditional gender views averaged $34,725 annually, for such women the salary averaged $20,321, salaries of men thinking that men and women are equal averaged $22, 795, while the salaries for such women averaged $21,373. In average, men with traditional gender views earned $11,930 more than men with modern gender views and $14,404 more than women with traditional gender views.
The survey also found interestingly that the gap between men and women with same gender views is 10 times larger for those with traditional gender views than those with modern gender views.
Usually these types of researches look at the difference between sexes and they usually come up with findings that women earn less than women do, even in equal working conditions. This survey also was supposed to find a gap between earnings for men and women, but it turned out that gender views affects earning more than gender itself does.
Reported by Ruzanna Haroutiunyan
