The headlines are consistent: The gender pay gap has narrowed, but American women who work full time still make only 84 cents for every dollar men do. That’s certainly better than at the turn of the century—when it was 77 cents—but far short of parity.
So, is this proof of continuing workplace discrimination? Not so much, says new research from the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI). The pay gap figure is a snapshot of a moment. The MGI research is more like a time-lapse video. Using a data set of 86,000 online work histories, MGI analyzed individual career decisions over time, allowing it to gain insight into how people navigate their careers. The research found that the great majority—some 80%—of the total pay gap between male and female earners in part-time and full-time roles was attributable to the differences in the way men and women pursue their career paths
