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Women have always faced a persistent gap in pay compared with men - but now, it's getting worse.

While women have made steady gains in education, workforce participation, and leadership over the decades, equal pay has never been fully achieved. At best, the gap had been slowly narrowing - until now.

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According to the latest Census Bureau data, women earned just 80.9 cents for every dollar men made in 2024, down from 84 cents in 2022. That marks two consecutive years of decline. In fact, it's the first time the gap has grown two years in a row since the Census Bureau started keeping records in the 1960s. (1)

Experts say a convergence of social and economic forces - from return-to-office mandates to soaring child care costs and lasting pandemic fallout - has reversed years of progress and put many women at a disadvantage. Here's what's driving the setback, and how women can start reclaiming their financial power.

Return to office mandates have widened the gender pay gap

When companies started calling workers back to the office, the fallout wasn't even across men and women.

The Washington Post shares the story of Courtney Clements, who took a roughly $30,000 pay cut in 2023 to leave a senior executive role because of a return-to-work mandate. (2)

Clements saw it as a big step back in her career, but she took a remote IT role that allowed her to work from home and spend more time with her child.

“In college and in my 20s, if you'd told me that I wouldn't care about climbing the corporate ladder, I'd literally have laughed at you,” she told The Washington Post. Clements says she would choose being jobless“before going back into an office again, at this stage in my life.” (3)

And she isn't the only one.

A new analysis of more than 3 million finance and tech workers found women were nearly three times more likely than men to quit after an office mandate. Many took pay cuts or even stepped into new industries just to keep flexibility. (4)

“To move to another industry with a demotion, they are making a big, big sacrifice,” said Mark Ma, associate professor of business administration at the University of Pittsburgh and one of the study's lead researchers. (5)

And as more big employers double down on in-office culture, experts say that pattern is likely to continue.

Read more: I'm almost 50 and have nothing saved for retirement - what now? Don't panic. These 6 easy steps can help you turn things around

The high cost of child care is weakening women's wages

Even before the pandemic, the cost of child care was one of the biggest barriers to women's financial equality. COVID-19 only made that imbalance worse. Wage parity was“moving in the right direction,” according to Jasmine Tucker, vice president for research at the National Women's Law Center. But Tucker says the shift began during the pandemic, when lack of child care meant that more women than men were leaving the labor force,“for longer periods of time.” (6)

And with child care costs now higher than rent in every state, and more than in-state college tuition in most states, many working moms are finding the math just doesn't add up. A University of Kansas analysis found that the share of working mothers with young children fell 2.8% in the first half of 2025, the biggest mid-year drop in more than four decades. (7)

Women in caregiving roles returned to work for lower paying jobs

Time away from the workforce can carry lasting financial consequences.

Many women who paused their careers for caregiving returned to jobs“at a lower level than they left,” Tucker said, often facing résumé gaps that hurt their earning power. (8) And because women are still overrepresented in low-wage industries, the flood of workers re-entering those roles in 2023 likely widened the gap even more.

A 2023 U.S. Department of Labor report estimated that caregiving costs women about $295,000 in lost lifetime wages and cuts down on lifetime earnings by about 15%. This includes everything from missed promotions to smaller retirement savings. (9)

While the systemic forces behind the widening pay gap can't be fixed overnight, women can still take concrete steps to strengthen their financial position - starting right now.

Reclaiming your finances amid a widening gender pay gap

Tough decisions for families can have lasting consequences, and while companies and policymakers debate fixes, the gap continues to widen, putting decades of progress at risk. But there are some ways that women can start regaining control over their money, right now.

1. Get confident about negotiating

According to a Pew study, 42% of women aren't negotiating their first offers. (10) If the idea of negotiating makes you squirm, consider a quick tune-up through online courses that boost confidence and strategy. There's a free, 15-minute Harvard course offered online, for starters.

2. Level up your skills

Fresh certifications, tech training, or leadership courses don't just pad your résumé, they can lead directly to better pay. Even short, affordable online programs can be a game-changer, helping you step into higher-earning roles or branch into freelance work.

3. Use transparency to your advantage

Knowledge is leverage. Platforms like Glassdoor, Fishbowl, and Indeed now publish real-time salary data, helping women benchmark their pay and spot inequities before accepting a job offer. Even within your current company, new pay transparency laws in many states make it easier to start honest conversations about compensation. The more open the data, the less room there is for silent pay disparities to persist.

The gender wage gap may be widening, but that doesn't mean women are powerless. By doubling down on financial strategy, skill growth, and smart automation, women can keep their earnings momentum alive, even in a tougher economy, one smart move at a time.

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Article sources

We rely only on vetted sources and credible third-party reporting. For details, see our editorial ethics and guidelines.

Census Bureau (1 ); The Washington Post (2 ), (3 ), (5 ), (6 ), (8 ); SSRN (4 ); The University of Kansas (7 ); DOL (9 ); Pew Research Center (10 );

This article originally appeared on Moneywise under the title: The gender pay gap is widening again for the first time since the 1960s - and experts say these 3 forces are to blame

This article provides information only and should not be construed as advice. It is provided without warranty of any kind.

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