“If women are saddled with a burden of caretaking for either children or elder members of their families, they’re not able to engage the workplace. “Family leave is a critical part of reaching pay equity,” Twillie says. Furthermore, Twillie says many organizations still have inadequate family leave. That said, the impending recession has sparked layoffs and hiring freezes and at many companies putting all job seekers – especially Black women – at a disadvantage. “I am starting to see a lot of companies create better wellness packages, whether it’s paying for Headspace for employees or giving them a stipend, so they can actually seek a therapist or do something that improves their mental health,” she says. Thankfully, Lopez says many companies are working to make their organizations a place where workers want to stay. More than anything else, the women surveyed cited feelings of burnout as their main reason for leaving. “COVID empowered workers and caused them to question if their work situation was really working for them,” Lopez says.Ī 2021 survey by career company Fairygodboss and nFormation, a community for and by professional women of color, found that approximately one-third of all women of color were planning to leave their jobs by 2022. Armed with new data, many Black women chose to seek out better jobs. “A lot of the awareness and conversations around pay equity and total compensation packages are really moving the needle,” says Ariel Lopez, career coach and founder and CEO at Knac, a data-driven talent evaluation platform that helps companies diversify their candidate pools.Īdditionally, Lopez says that apps like Blind and Fishbowl, which allow employees to have anonymous candid conversations, can shed light on issues such as compensation and workplace culture. Moving the Needleįrom COVID’s disproportionate impact on people of color to the social unrest sparked by racially motivated police violence, 2020 made more people aware of institutional racism and sexism and ignited much-needed dialog and steps toward change. These wage discrepancies can result in Black women losing close to $1 million over the course of a 40-year career. The wage gap seems to start with girls as young as 16 and continues to worsen as Black women progress through their education and careers, according to a study from ESSENCE and that was presented at a recent symposium called “Black Women Deserve Fair Pay.” (You can listen in on the full conversation here.) Even though Black women enroll in college at higher rates than men, Black women who have bachelor’s degrees still earn 36% less than white men with bachelor’s degrees on average. “It’s going to take quite a long time for Black women to recover,” says Jacqueline Twillie, founder and CEO at, a professional development company focused on closing gender wage and leadership gaps.īlack women earn 42% less than their non-BIPOC male counterparts and 20% less than non-BIPOC women. ![]() Based on ACS Census data, the 2021 wage gap for Black women compared to non-Hispanic white men was 58 cents. For full-time Black women workers, the median wage went down compared to the year before. In 2020, Black women made 63% of what White, non-Hispanic men made - a ratio that closely resembles the gender wage gap of the 1960s. Over half of Black women surveyed in a 2020 study by ESSENCE reported that they were facing or anticipating a negative financial impact as a result of the pandemic. ![]() In other words, the wage gap for Black women is widening. ![]() In 2021, Black Women’s Equal Pay Day was recognized on August 3, but this year it’s been pushed back by nearly two months. It’s always a date we’d rather not be marking, but in 2022, it’s time to stop and take a long look at the wage inequities that Black women face. Septemis Black Women’s Equal Pay Day, which marks how far into the year Black women must work - for free- just to earn what men earned the previous year.
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