It doesn’t take much digging to uncover the challenges women face in the workforce right here in Butler County.

Just last Thursday, a panel of women spoke on the subject in Cranberry Township at the third annual Women Shaping Our Region event. The consensus was that the advancement of women in the workforce is not perpetuated.

In response to the final question posed to the panel — Have you “arrived” in the workforce, or is there still work to be done? — Federal Judge Marilyn Horan, a longtime county resident, recalled that when she was first elected to serve on the Butler County Common Pleas Court in 1996, a reporter asked her how it felt to be the first woman on the bench in the county.

“I still remember my answer to this day,” she said. “I said ‘We’d know women had arrived when reporters stopped asking that question.’”

That response speaks volumes.

As long as women are still the “first” in their field, their office, their community, there is work to be done.

And as long as there’s a gap between what men and women are paid, there’s work to be done.

According to a report published March 1, 2022, by the United States Census Bureau, the median earnings for men who worked full-time year-round in 2019 was $53,544 (+/- $209). The same report showed women in comparable positions earned $43,394 (+/- $181) in that span.

That’s a wage gap of about $10,150 per year.

Break this data down a little further and you’ll fine the gender wage gap is a little larger yet in Pennsylvania at roughly $11,396. Men in Pennsylvania in 2019 earned $55,367 (+/- $512) and women trailed at $43,971 (+/- $628).

An article by the Harvard Business Review published in June 2022 reported women in 2022 earn 17% less than men on average.

The article recognizes the usual “excuses” for the gap in pay: that women choose to work in lower-paying occupations, that they are behind due to time off for childcare, and so on.

Then it digs deeper and offers further explanation. The Harvard Business Review collected seven years of pay data for bus and train operators employed by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA). The analysis shows an 11% gender gap.

The Harvard Business Review found “the more unpredictable, unconventional or uncontrollable workers’ schedules were, the greater the resulting gender gap.” In other words, women make less money because women are more likely to have responsibilities outside of work that require them to have “unpredictable” schedules — things like picking up children from school and taking care of elderly parents.

Throw in childcare issues remaining from the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, and women have quite a bit on their plates.

But that doesn’t make it right. That doesn’t make it fair.

Of course, families must work together to take care of the responsibilities of their household in whichever way works best for them, but employers too must recognize and respond to the needs of female employees.

There’s a balance to be struck here, but right now, the price to pay for being a woman in the workplace remains steep and the inequality conspicuous.

— TL