Occupational Differences Cited in Gender Pay Gap

Women working for the federal government on average earn about 13 percent less than men on average but that is largely due to women on average being concentrated in lower-paying occupations, and OPM report has found. After controlling for occupation and certain other factors including educational level, the difference in 2012 was 3.8 percent on average—about the same as in 1992 and 2002 while the unadjusted number fell from 30 percent over that period. Like a prior GAO study, OPM said its work did not confirm pay discrimination but neither did it rule it out. It said the narrowing of the overall average figure mainly reflects a decrease in lower-paying clerical jobs in which women traditionally were—and still are—over-represented in terms of their percentage in the workforce, plus an increasing percentage of women in higher-paying professional and administrative jobs. At managerial and senior executive levels, the difference was even more narrow, but the report noted that women hold only about a third of those positions. Women also are under-represented in the so-called STEM—scientific, technical, engineering and math—occupations that also pay well.