reversal of fortune?

I found your salary survey ("what are you worth?" May 2006, page 28) to be extremely interesting. I do, however, disagree with your analysis of the pay gap related to gender.

The second-to-last paragraph of the sidebar titled "the gender chasm" states: "The pattern [of women's salaries lagging behind their male counterparts'] persists throughout their careers. Though women start out strong—our findings showed that females aged 18 to 25 out-earned their male counterparts by a wide margin—they quickly lose their advantage."

The wording that the women are "falling behind" and "The pattern persists" would indicate that you are tracking the same women throughout their careers, which is not what the study did. The study took a snapshot of the current average pay of each age group. This is vastly different from a study that tracks the difference between male and female pay ranges of a specific generation over time.

If your interpretation of the data is correct, young professional women can expect to encounter the same salary disparity that you discovered in the study throughout their careers. However, I would argue this conclusion cannot be drawn from the collected data. In fact, what your study may indicate is that the upcoming generation of female professionals, who are making more than their male counterparts, has begun to close the salary gap of the past and even reverse the disparity. The only way to find out if they indeed "fall behind" would be to survey the same group over time and see if the salaries of the males do, in fact, overtake those of the females.

Your study does point to gender injustice in the past; however, to prove your statements, a different study must be performed.

Mike Ellinger, Dematic