Women's Work: The Economic Mobility of Women Across a Generation

This report creates more accurate earnings comparisons between parent-child pairs by controlling for these demographic and labor market differences. First, hourly wage rates are compared across generations to understand changes in women’s pay, independent from the dramatic increases in women’s hours worked. Then daughters’ earnings are adjusted to match the work hours of their mothers to explore what daughters’ economic standing would be if women’s labor force participation had remained constant over a generation. Similarly aged fathers and sons are also included as points of comparison (p.2-3).

This study demonstrates that women’s increased labor force participation and earnings have enabled some families to maintain their places on the economic ladder or, particularly among families at the bottom, to move up. But as was the case for many women in the previous generation, men’s earnings continue to matter most for families’ income and, therefore, economic mobility” (p.3).

Key findings are listed below:

• “More women are in the labor force now than a generation ago, and they are working longer hours and earning more money than mothers did” (p.3). 
• ‘Median hourly wages have increased relative to the last generation for both women and men” (p.4).
• “The majority of daughters and sons experienced upward absolute wage mobility” (p.5).
• “Daughters working full time contribute more than half of family incomes, strengthening financial security” (p.6).
• “There is tremendous ‘stickiness’ at the ends of the wage ladder for women and men…. [(Individuals] raised [at] the top or bottom quintiles … likely … remain there as adults)” (p.8). • “Daughters’ higher work hours have increased rates of upward earnings mobility for families, especially at the bottom and middle” (p.8).
• “Despite significant generational gains by women, men’s wages remain the more important contributing factor to higher family income among couples” (p.12). • “By all estimates, women’s wages will continue to grow in importance for their families, making greater wage parity all the more critical” (p.12). (Abstractor: Author)

• Last Updated:
• Created:
• Resource Publication Date: 2014
• Author(s): Currier, Erin; Elliott, Diana; Plunkett, Travis; Sattelmeyer, Sarah; Urahn, Susan K.; Wilson, Denise
• Organizational Author(s): The Pew Charitable Trusts
• Funding Source: Funding source not identified
• Resource Availability: Publicly available
• Posted by: India Johnson
• Posted in: Workforce System Strategies