Progress to close the gender pay gap has been slow and inconsistent. In 2024, the pay gap actually widened for the second year in a row: Women made just 81 cents for every $1 paid to a man, down from 83 cents in 2023 and 84 cents in 2022.
New data shows that the gender pay gap more than doubles over the course of a woman’s career, according to a Glassdoor report published on Tuesday.
The report found that women’s earnings stall in their mid-30s, while men’s continue to grow through their 40s.
Here’s why the wage gap continues to grow later in women’s careers — and what employers can do to support women in the workplace.
How the gap widens over time
Glassdoor used its repository of salary data to calculate both the total pay gap between men and women and the “within-role” gap — when women are paid less than their male counterparts in similar positions — over the span of a 30-year career. The report did not differentiate results based on race or ethnicity; the pay gap is typically even wider for Black women and Latinas.
During the first 10 years of their careers, the overall gender pay gap between women and men grows from 12% to 19%, according to the report, and the within-role gap rises from 0% to 4%.
Chris Martin, senior economist at Glassdoor, attributes that initial 12% gap to “between-role” differences: men and women are “choosing different jobs at different companies in different places,” which affects their starting pay, he says.
Female-dominated industries tend to be lower-paying than male-dominated ones, and research has shown that when women enter occupations in large numbers, pay in those jobs declines.
The overall wage gap widens dramatically in the second stage of women’s careers, between 10 and 30 years of experience, though the within-role gap holds steady at 5%, Martin says.
Women’s wage growth essentially plateaus at age 35, while men’s earnings continue to rise throughout their 40s, according to the report. As a result, after 30 years of work experience, men out-earn women by 25%.
Why women’s wages stall at 35
There are several reasons for this growing wage discrepancy, Martin says. One is the motherhood penalty: Women are often expected to take on a disproportionate share of child-care responsibilities, which can limit “the amount of time and energy they have available to dedicate to their careers,” according to Martin.
However, even women who don’t have children experience a dip in their earnings during their mid-30s, Martin says, and those women still earn significantly less than men do by the time they reach their 50s.
During this mid-career period, men are more likely to get promoted into better-paying jobs, while women advance at lower rates, according to Martin. Because of gender biases, “there’s a cap on how high women can go” in many organizations before they hit the “glass ceiling,” he says.
Overall, women are not promoted to supervisory roles at the same rates as men, says Jasmine Tucker, the vice president for research at the National Women’s Law Center. Last year, only 93 women were promoted to manager-level roles for every 100 men, according to Lean In and McKinsey & Company’s 2025 Women in the Workplace report.
The report found that women remained underrepresented at every level, especially at the top. Women held 29% of C-suite roles, for example. And just 11% of the companies on the 2025 Fortune 500 list were led by female CEOs, a record high.
A 2022 study found that even when women received higher performance ratings than male peers, they were still perceived as having less advancement potential.
Men continue to hold the majority of executive-level positions, Tucker says, “and when you’re promoting and when you’re hiring, you tend to hire people who look like you.”
How companies can address the pay gap
The first step all organizations can take to mitigate the gender pay gap is to “conduct proactive pay equity analyses,” Martin says. In other words, they need to “identify and address” cases where women are paid less than their male peers.
Managers and leaders should also analyze “whether men and women or different groups are advancing at the same rates within the organization,” he says.
What’s more, companies need to provide additional support for employees with caregiving responsibilities, Martin says, such as flexible work options. Without adequate support, “you’re going to see [caregivers] advance less in the workplace and be less successful, because they have needs that are not being met or accommodated by the organization,” he says.
More can be done through state and federal policies, Tucker says. To tackle issues like the motherhood penalty, Tucker emphasizes that systemic solutions like implementing universal child care and paid family leave are key to leveling the playing field for women.
Right now, she says, “we’re not creating systems under which women can thrive in the workplace.”
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