Despite the passage of the Equal Pay Act in 1963, which made it illegal for employers to discriminate based on gender, men continue to earn more than women in the same jobs. In 2012, male full-time workers notched median annual earnings of $49,398, compared with $37,791 for female workers, according to a study titled “Male-Female Pay Gap Hasn’t Moved Much in Years.” The ratio has shifted throughout the years, but men consistently earn more than women, in every working field. Women ages 25 to 44 earned 80 cents to a man’s dollar last year, up from 74 cents in 1993. Women ages 45 to 64 earned 73 cents, up from 61 cents in 1993, according to the same study.

Professor Claudia Goldin, a Harvard specialist in economics, said that a solution to this issue is for jobs to have more flexibility in who they desire as an employee. Employers in the labor industry, in particular, often desire male workers instead of females, due to the theory that men have a better physique for physical labor than women. “In technology, engineering and construction, 79 percent of men expect to make more than $90,000, compared to just 44 percent of women in the same field, “ according to the Atlantic article, “Even Women Who Graduate From Harvard Aren't Immune to the Wage Gap.” Even in this current time, the pay gap has grown to have almost a 50 percentage difference, and women continue to make less than men.

While many women in the current work field receive college degrees to earn larger incomes at their jobs, men with the same educational backgrounds continue to to make more money. In a study focused on college graduates’ earnings, females with degrees aged 25-29 earned about 86 cents for every $1 their male counterparts did in 2012 according to the report “Positive Trends Underneath Wider Wage Gap Between Men and Women,” by Brenda Cronin, an economist writing in the Wall Street Journal. While is this slightly better than the statistic for women in general, women still receive less than 20 cents than men in certain work fields, despite their educational experience and background history. Every workforce has different income comparisons , but all manage to pay male employees more in the same jobs, working the same number of hours, according to the study “Male-Female Pay Gap Hasn’t Moved Much in Years.”The study showed that women working full time earned 76.5 cents for every dollar that men did in 2012. Still in the 21st century, the pay gap has shifted, but men still make a dollar to women’s change per hour.

Nanette Lepore, a successful New York fashion designer, had a difficult time developing her dream job due to gender employment issues, according to her profile on LeanIn.org, a website dedicated to encouraging women to pursue their career goals. Lepore said, “I was so persistent that the owner, Carol Rollo, a fun Italian woman from the Bronx, finally hired me — probably so that I would leave her alone. I had been calling her every other day for about three weeks.” Unfortunately, Lepore said “I discovered that I had too much experience to be a newcomer, and all the wrong experience to be an associate designer. I had to pick up a job cocktail waitressing just to pay the bills, and couldn’t find a job in fashion for a year and half.” She believes this was based on her gender; a fashion company wasn't looking for a female employee. Lepore decided she didn't want to wait any longer, and decided to “hire herself” instead. She says, “We set up a shop in the East Village in the cheapest storefront we could find, between a gas station and soup kitchen. We eventually moved to New York City’s Garment Center.” Lepore took matters into her own hands and didn't want to rely on someone finally giving her a chance.

She said, “I eventually moved to where I thought I would be most successful. Unfortunately within the first three years, we were over $100,000 in debt and had almost lost my dad’s house — we had mortgaged it to help pay for production. It took ten years to pay him back and turn a profit, but we eventually went on to stage her own runway shows in New York — changing the image of my brand and catapulting us into the international scene. Lepore had difficulties earning a decent living in a job that seemed to be impossible to be hired in. Instead she made her own designs and became a strong, and independent female fashion designer, where she could be in charge of her own income amounts instead of being in competition with a male employee.

In today’s society, male dominance persists in the workforce. Women often need to base their career choices on non-traditional paths and possibly even pursue self employment to have a chance of becoming successful in the work field they desire. Entrepreneurship might be the path toward female success. According to the National Association of Self Employment (NASE), the number of women-owned businesses grew by 44% between 1997-2007, twice as fast as men-owned firms. Women-owned firms also added roughly 500,000 jobs, while other privately-held firms lost jobs. Since society has shifting expectations and new careers are becoming possible all the time, it's unclear what the future of the pay gap will or if men and women will become equal financially.