Female scientists with PhDs earn substantially less than their male counterpart (职位相当的人). A survey tracked more than 55, 700 people who earned PhDs between 2018 and 2019. Overall, about 35% of all PhD recipients reported having a permanent job lined up at graduation, among which men reported an average annual salary of $95, 000. Women reported a salary of $72, 500, a gap of $22, 500. In a similar survey in 2020, the overall gender（性别） gap in salaries was $18, 000.
Men were over-represented in relatively high-paying fields such as computer science and engineering, but inequality continued to exist even within fields. Men with permanent jobs in the life sciences, for example, reported an expected median salary of $87, 000, compared with $80, 000 for women. In mathematics and computer science, men reported an expected median salary of $125, 000; for women, that figure was $101, 500.
Salaries and career paths can vary greatly from one scientific discipline to another, says Michael Roach, an economist at Cornell University. Roach is looking closely into differences in career outcomes for US PhD holders. Roach says it's clear that women, on average, earn less than men even when all other factors are taken into account. In industrial research and development, there are differences that can't be explained by ability or degree or the status of a university.
The root causes of those differences remain unclear, Roach says. One possibility is that men are more willing to negotiate for higher salaries. Roach notes that some women might have to make sacrifices to start families, but it would be a mistake to blame all income gaps on lifestyle decisions. “A lot of men want to spend more time with their families too, ” he says.
The report shows that a PhD improves overall career and salary prospects, but the actual value clearly depends on the field of study, the demands of the marketplace and, for reasons that still aren't clear, the person holding the degree. Researchers are still looking at the factors that might keep women from achieving the same level of success that equally qualified men are able to achieve.
