These experience include being in university environments where there are more female than male students, and coming from high schools where girls outperform the boys. Equal treatment of women and men on college campuses remains regulated, albeit imperfectly, by Title IX. Women attend graduate schools in roughly equal or greater numbers than men. College-educated women see only a tiny pay gap in their early- and mid-20s, making 97 cents for every dollar earned by their male colleagues.
That experience starts to change a few more years into the work force. By 35, those same college-educated women are making 15 percent less than their male peers. Womens earnings peak between ages 35 and 44 and then plateau, while mens continue to rise.
What starts out as a near 50-50 professional split among new lawyers, for example, becomes a big gap: Women are just 17 percent of equity partners at law firms generally, according to the National Association of Women Lawyers.
