Thursday, September 2, 2010

Good Salary News For Women...if You Don't Ever Get Married or Have Kids

Don't get too excited about Time.com's triumphant headline "Workplace Salaries: At Last, Women on Top" unless you know of a way to freeze your age at 29 and are willing to forsake marriage and kids. Forever.

First they say that according to a new analysis of 2,000 communities by a market research company, in 147 out of 150 of the biggest cities in the U.S., the median full-time salaries of young women are 8% higher than those of the guys in their peer group. Great, right?

Well, then comes the "slightly deflating caveat": this new trend applies only to unmarried, childless women under 30 who live in cities. The rest of working women — even those of the same age, but who are married or don't live in a major metropolitan area — are still making less than men, just like usual.

Great, so on the low-income side of the career spectrum (pre-30s)--and for a very finite time period--some women are making more than men. Halle-freakin-lujah. I guess those of us who are in our 40s, have kids and are married better not hold our breath on the equal pay front.

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