Study: Women's salaries lag behind men's

NEW YORK (AP) - Women are narrowing the gap in salaries with men and are even surpassing them in certain fields, according to a magazine survey released Tuesday.

It's more likely, though, for men to be the beneficiaries of a salary gap, according to the annual survey by Working Woman magazine.

The results jibe with data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which reported in May that women earn 76.5 cents on the dollar compared to men. That's an increase of 0.2 cent from 1998 and a 14-cent increase since the government started keeping track in 1979.

''Although there are still a lot of inequities, there's a lot of good news too,'' said Lisa Lee Freeman, the magazine's features editor. The study found wide variations depending on the industry.

In advertising, female CEO's average an annual salary of $275,000, compared to $253,100 for men. Female physicists earn $65,208, about $400 more than their male counterparts. In occupational therapy, women make an average of $39,312 - $7,384 more than male occupational therapists.

''In the case of advertising, it's a woman-dominated business,'' Freeman said. ''It's an industry where the idea is more important than the gender.''

In general, the salary gap is narrowing in part because the economy demands a high-quality work force, forcing employers to make hiring and pay-scale decisions on merit, she said.

''They're looking for good employees, regardless of color, regardless of sex,'' Freeman said.

June O'Neill, an economics professor at Baruch College in New York City, said the data from surveys like these can be misleading, because men and women often approach their jobs differently. For example, men are likely to put in more hours than women, she said.

''It's extremely hard to make comparisons, but when you are better able to compare employees of equivalent aspirations and equivalent commitment, the closer the salaries are,'' O'Neill said.

The magazine's survey is based on analysis of existing data from a variety of government and industry sources, including the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the National Society of Professional Engineers and accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers.

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On the Net: http://www.workingwoman.com