A recent study claims that college-educated workers on average hit their salary ceiling in their 40s and early 50s. But that doesn’t tell the whole story.
Earning power varies significantly based on gender, and the rate at which those earnings grow and for how long differs drastically between men and women.
CNBC.com has done a nice job of detailing the findings, which portray a workplace very much suffering from a gender pay gap. The average peak salary of a woman, meanwhile, is $61,000.
Occupational segregation
Some of the gender pay gap is due to occupational segregation (the fields of work men and women tend to dominate, which vary considerably in earning capacity); some is due to the fact that women leave the workforce to care for others at higher rates than men; and then there’s the opportunity gap, for good measure. But a gap in pay exists even when women have qualifications identical to their male counterparts. For more in-depth analysis on this topic, check out this report on the state of the gender gap in 2019, courtesy of Payscale.
For both men and women the reality is that earnings may peak sooner than you think, and will stall out long before retirement age is reached — so be aware and plan accordingly.
This article originally appeared on Considerable.com and was syndicated by MediaFeed.org.
Featured Image Credit: DepositPhotos.com.
