One obvious reason is that Millennial women (especially professionals) have not had babies yet.<p>The effect of taking time of work for children is not immediate, it creates a pay gap for the rest of somebody's career.<p>If we imagine somebody's pay over their career as an upward sloping line eg.<p>year 1 40k<p>year 2 42k<p>year 3 44k<p>etc...<p>When a woman takes 6-24 months of work to have a kid or two then that pauses their pay increases for that time and they are 1-4k worse off than somebody who didn't take time off at all when they get back. Add to that that women do more of the school runs and other caring when they DO return to work...
Remember this next time you hear the "77 cents to the dollar" lament by young feminists in college with a degree in "women's studies". <i>They</i> are not likely to be disadvantaged, just more likely than men to want to have babies and/or a more flexible job when they turn 30+.<p>Also, interestingly enough, white women have been typically been better off than black or Hispanic men as regards wage gap with respect to white men (<a href="http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0882775.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0882775.html</a>) -- something that is often conveniently swept under the carpet by white feminists.
Check out the absolute pay numbers in the Pew Research article:
<a href="http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2013/12/11/on-pay-gap-millennial-women-near-parity-for-now/" rel="nofollow">http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2013/12/11/on-pay-gap-millenn...</a><p>While women's wages have dropped slightly in recent years, men's wages have dropped much more. The OP article is misleading, or uninteresting at best -- both men and women are worse off in terms of wages.
The employment picture for millennials is supposedly bleak, from what I've heard. If a lot of men in this age bracket are now taking sub-optimal jobs as an alternative to being completely unemployed, that could also explain a narrowing in the gap. There's a lot more wage parity in hourly service-sector jobs.
Other than the note that has already been made about the difference in the age women first have children, I don't think this is a huge surprise to most "millennials." In most circles, as well as in most pop culture, an ideal expectation of equality is the well-accepted default.<p>Now an expectation of equality and the practice thereof are two very different things, but it seems like we're making progress, and I can only hope we continue to do so.
This article has some possible explanations: <a href="http://theweek.com/article/index/249955/why-is-the-gender-wage-gap-stuck-3-theories" rel="nofollow">http://theweek.com/article/index/249955/why-is-the-gender-wa...</a>