Last year, for the first time in two decades, the gender wage gap widened, with men’s median earnings rising 3% while women’s grew only 1.5%. This backsliding surprised some, in part because it defies widely held beliefs in the U.S. that social progress unfolds automatically and steadily over time. Such conventional wisdom holds that each successive generation will become more egalitarian and enjoy more opportunities than the last. According to this view, reaching gender equality is “inevitable”; it just takes time.
