Paying Women Equally Would Be a Boon for 'Everyone Else,' Too

http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/36263-paying-women-equally-would-be-a-boon-for-everyone-else-too

Some economists worry that as America’s population ages and retires, there won’t be enough young workers to replace them. The consequences of this would be harmful to the economy: There would be fewer people to provide goods and services, fewer people working and earning wages, and lower levels of worker productivity—all of which could result in a slowing of GDP growth.

But making more room for women in the workforce (and paying them just as much as men for it) could help bridge that gap. Right now, women work fewer hours, largely in lower-paying sectors, and have a lower labor force participation rate than men. Increasing their labor-force participation and helping them enter (and stay) in more lucrative and highly-productive jobs would make it easier to maintain current levels of economic activity and production, even as workers retire, and prevent the deceleration that economist are worried about.

McKinsey puts some numbers on how this gap could be closed. By 2025, its report estimates, complete labor-force parity—if women were paid equally, if they worked the same number of hours as men, and if they were represented equally in every sector—could result in an additional $4.3 trillion being added to the U.S. GDP, which is almost 20 percent higher than current projections. But that figure is a bit pie-in-the-sky, since it assumes that women’s paid labor would precisely mirror men’s. The researchers also come up with what feels like a more plausible scenario, one in which each U.S. state rises to the level of the states that are currently making the most progress toward gender-wage equality. Under those circumstances, the gains are still significant: $2.1 trillion by 2025, which represents a 10 percent increase over the current projections of what GDP will be then.

So how exactly would this work? Who has a hand in increasing GDP growth? Ultimately, this is a goal that companies and the government can actively pursue—they could choose to invest in things that will help working women. Companies, for instance, could put more money toward training their employees and toward hiring bigger staffs, as well as eliminating in-house gender-wage gaps and devoting attention to creating work environments that are inviting to women.