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These Are the Jobs With the Biggest Gender Pay Gaps

Kristen Bellstrom
By
Kristen Bellstrom
Kristen Bellstrom
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Kristen Bellstrom
By
Kristen Bellstrom
Kristen Bellstrom
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March 23, 2016, 12:40 PM ET
Inside A Cyber-Defense Class At Korea University As South Korea Trains Student Hackers To Fight Kim Jong Un's Cyber Elite
A student types on a keyboard during a cyber-defense programming class in the "War Room" at Korea University in Seoul, South Korea, on Thursday, Nov. 26, 2015.Photograph by SeongJoon Cho—Bloomberg via Getty Images

Considering the push to get more women into tech, you might think companies would be throwing bushels of money at female computer programmers. But as it turns out, you’d be wrong.

According to a study released Wednesday by Glassdoor, computer programmers have the largest wage gap of any profession examined by the career site, with female programmers making an average of 72 cents for every dollar earned by their male counterparts.

Glassdoor looked at 505,000 salary report from 25 industries, controlling for factors like type of company and workers’ level of experience. Here’s a look at the top 10 jobs with the biggest adjusted pay gaps.

There’s a clear pattern here: The largest differentials are found in traditionally male-dominated roles like computer programmer, chef, and c-level executive. Conversely, Glassdoor found that jobs historically held by women have smaller, or even reversed, gaps.

These stats also tell us something important about the larger pay gap. Census data tells us that the top jobs for women are low-paid careers like cashier and secretary. If men outnumber women in lucrative fields like programming and the top ranks of medicine—and those women who do make it into those jobs are paid substantially less than their male colleagues‚—is it any wonder that recent estimates suggest that it will take us another 117 years to close the global pay gap?

About the Author
Kristen Bellstrom
By Kristen Bellstrom
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