After years in decline, is the gender pay gap opening up?

On average, women earn less than men. Much of this is because of the jobs they perform, by choice or social expectation; these are often worse-paid than typical male occupations. Some, as when women’s pay is lower for the same position, is the result of discrimination. Before the covid-19 pandemic, the gap between median male and female wages was at least edging down. The Economist’s glass-ceiling index of female workplace empowerment, published each year on March 8th, international women’s day, shows that this salutary trend reversed in 2021 in some of the mostly rich members of the OECD, including Britain and Canada (see chart, and economist.com/glassceiling for the full index).