APICS report shows younger women closing pay gap

If you're a female working in the supply chain profession, we have bad news and good news. The bad news is that according to a recent study, women still lag behind men when it comes to pay. The third-quarter 2010 "Operations Management Employment Outlook" report issued by APICS: The Association for Operations Management and the Cameron School of Business at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington showed that women in the field earned on average 16.3 percent less than their male peers.

The good news is the gap is closing for younger workers. The latest data showed that among employees in the 31 to 35 age range, the disparity between men's and women's salaries was only about 2 percent.

"We are encouraged by the narrowed salary gap between younger men and women," said APICS Chief Executive Officer Abe Eshkenazi, in a statement. Eshkenazi attributed some of that progress to women's educational levels. "More and more, education can be the great equalizer for professional salaries," he said, adding that providing education is one of the group's key missions.