Behind Arquette’s Oscar Speech: Hollywood’s Pay Gap Looks a Lot Like Ours

“We have fought for everybody else’s equal rights, it’s our time to have wage equality once and for all,” Patricia Arquette said Sunday at the Academy Awards.

Reuters

Actress Patricia Arquette’s plea to address the wage disparity between female and male workers received a rousing ovation from Meryl Streep and other Hollywood royalty on Sunday. One reason: When it comes to the gender gap in wages, the entertainment industry looks like the rest of us.
In accepting the Academy Award for best supporting actress, Ms. Arquette brought the earnings issue to center stage. “We have fought for everybody else’s equal rights, it’s our time to have wage equality once and for all,” she said. “And equal rights for women in the United States of America.”
Women working full-time in the U.S. last year earned 82.5 cents for every dollar a man earned, according to the Labor Department’s weekly wage data. In the arts, entertainment, sports and media industry, women fared only slightly better, earning 85% of their male counterparts’ pay.

The issue, which has long simmered on campaign trails and in boardrooms, gained attention last year when leaked Sony Pictures e-mails showed that A-list actresses Amy Adams and Jennifer Lawrence were paid less than their male co-stars Christian Bale and Bradley Cooper for the film “American Hustle.”
But Labor Department data shows the disparity is hardly confined to Hollywood.
The widest gap in weekly earnings last year came in the legal profession, where women earn 56.7% of men. Gaps are found in nearly every profession, ranging from chief executive (70%) to food preparation (90.5%).
In only one of the 146 occupation categories for which the government publishes wage data for both genders did women out-earn men: stock clerks and order fillers.
In that field, which pays the average female worker $514 per week, women earned $10 more than men.
Occupation choice is not the only factor contributing to the overall wage gap. When adjusting for wide range of factors, including age, education and lifestyle choices—the gap never quite goes away, Brookings Institution economist Gary Burtless said last year.
“I have never seen anyone who has done a fair-minded study who fails to find there’s a residual amount of discrimination against women,” he said. “The difference cannot be attributed to completely innocent explanations.”