Equal Pay Day: Asian American and Pacific Islander Women and the wage gap

AAUW FILE PHOTO

ANLYSIS

On March 9, 2021 Asian American and Pacific Islander women’s average earnings will finally catch up to what white, non-Hispanic men made in 2020 for doing the same work.

This means that Asian American and Pacific Islander women who work full time, year-round are paid just 87 cents for every dollar paid to white, non-Hispanic men. As bad as that stat is, it gets worse when breaking down other AAPI women. Burmese women are paid only 52 cents for every dollar paid to white, non-Hispanic men.

Another way to look at it is that AAPI women must work two months and nine days more to earn what white, nonHispanic men earn in 12 months.

Conversations around the wage gap tend to over-focus on the numbers while ignoring the causes. But these numbers are more than facts and figures, they represent the tangible consequences of sexism and white supremacy in the United States and how our country systematically devalues women of color and their labor.

While racism and sexism are often thought of as individual bias, history shows us that systemic discrimination in pay and exploitation of workers based on race, class, gender and immigration status can be traced all the way back to this country’s immigration policies, from the Page Act of 1875, the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and the Immigration Act of 1924, to the Trump administration’s Muslim bans. Many of these policies stemmed from our horrific past of enslaving Africans and their descendants; and colonial attempts to destroy Native communities.

Believers of the model minority myth like to point out that some AAPI women actually earn more than the white male worker. Malaysian women, for instance, earn $1.25 for every dollar earned by white males; followed by Taiwanese $1.23: and (Asian) Indian $1.20.

Chinese American women are even with the white male workers, but for everybody else, that includes 19 other ethnicities and nationalities, the women, on average, are paid less than white, male workers

The largest groups of Asian Americans in the U.S., are Chinese, Indian, Filipino, Vietnamese and Korean.  While the wage gap between Chinese and Indian women and white, non-Hispanic men is small or nonexistent, Filipina, Vietnamese and Korean women are paid less. Filipina women are paid 83 cents, Vietnamese women 63 cents and Korean women 86 cents for every dollar paid to white, non-Hispanic men.

It is not just non-college educated women working in the service industry, domestics or in blue color jobs who are paid less, AAPI women within management and financial occupations are paid 88 cents, an annual pay gap of $10,654; as doctors, 75 cents, an annual gap of $50,009; and in sales, 62 cents, an annual pay gap of $25,015, compared to white, nonHispanic men in the same occupations.

Median wages for Asian American women in the United States are $56,807 per year, compared to median wages of $65,208 annually for white, non-Hispanic men, according to a fact sheet from the National Partnership for Women & Families.

These wage gaps make it harder for AAPI women—including the 55.5 percent of Asian mothers who are primary, sole, or co-breadwinners for their families—to make ends meet, build wealth, and weather crises like the COVID-19 pandemic. Wage gaps can also lead many people to poverty.

This $8,401 pay disparity amounts real-life, everyday consequences. These lost wages mean AAPI women and their families have less money to support themselves and their families, save and invest for the future, and spend on goods and services. Families, businesses and the economy suffer as a result.

For example, if the wage gap were eliminated, according to the National Partnership for Women & Families, on average, an Asian American woman working full time, year-round would have enough money for approximately: 

• Nearly eleven additional months of child care; 
• Nearly a full year of tuition and fees for a four-year public university, or the full cost of tuition and fees for a two-year community college; 
• More than five months of premiums for employer-provided health insurance; 
• More than five months of mortgage and utilities payments;
• Nearly eight additional months of rent; 
• Nearly seven additional years of birth control; or 
• Enough money to pay off student loan debt in just under four years. 

The coronavirus pandemic has halted economic progress for the average worker. However, job losses have been particularly devastating in many of the industries that disproportionately employ AAPI women.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, 52 percent of AAPI women report that they have faced some economic set back such as being laid off, furloughed, or faced a pay cut.

The outsize impact of the coronavirus recession on AAPI women and other women of color is due in large part to the fact that women of color disproportionately work in service sector industries—nearly all of which have hemorrhaged jobs throughout the pandemic as businesses with high customer interaction were shuttered and/or adjusted to limit operations in an attempt to slow the spread of COVID-19. Nearly half a million AAPI women work in restaurants and other food services as well as nail salons and other personal care services—industries that, combined, employ about 1 in 10 AAPI working women, according to the Center for American Progress.

In addition, AAPI women have been on the front lines during this crisis, working in health care as registered nurses and personal care aides as well as in the service sector as cashiers and retail salespersons.

Despite the discouraging pay disparities, the wage gap between AAPI women and white, nonHispanic men is not as great as other ethnicities. It is worse for Latinas, who earn, on average, 54 cents to a dollar earned by white, nonHispanic men. The equal pay day for Hispanic women is Nov. 20.

Again, breaking it down by ethnicity, Burmese women must work almost 11 months extra, until Nov. 21, to earn the annual salary of white, nonHispanic males.

Dumping on men for the wage disparities isn't the solution. But men do bear part of the responsibility for going along with the system and -- as uncomfortable as they might be -- they must be among the change agents to opening doors and transparency in the workplace. It is the institutions and the outmoded social mores in which they exist that allow and perpetuate the wage gap that are at fault.

The good news is that the pay gap is slowly narrowing. So, some progress is being made since the Equal Pay Act of 1963. The Act: "…prohibits sex-based wage discrimination between men and women in the same establishment who perform jobs that require substantially equal skill, effort and responsibility under similar working conditions."

The bad news is that the pay disparity appears to be narrowing more slowly. At today's rate, pay parity won't be achieved until 2059.

EDITOR'S NOTE: A word of caution, this is news mixed with opinion. Readers are encouraged to consult multiple sources to arrive at their own conclusions.