The tassels turned, the caps flew and another generation of Connecticut students crossed the stages earlier this month to celebrate their graduations.
But if history is any guide, the male graduates will be making more money on average than female graduates just a few years from now.
State data shows that the average annual earnings of students who graduated from a Connecticut public high school in 2007 increased unevenly for the next 15 years, across demographic and other measures.
The average yearly earnings for men who graduated from an in-state public high school in 2007 and currently have a college credential — a certificate, associate’s degree, bachelor’s degree or higher — rose to about $96,000 by 2022. The average annual earnings for a woman who graduated in 2007 with college credentials in 2022 were around $70,000 — a pay difference of more than $25,000.
Even for those with no college credentials, the pay gap was profound. Connecticut male 2007 high school graduates with no college credentials averaged $58,000 a year in 2022, compared to $42,000 for women.
The state education and labor departments, using cross-referenced data, have been tracking Connecticut public high school graduates from 2007 and their earnings over time to inform their policymaking. Their methodology emphasizes that their findings are not causal and are based on averages, which may be skewed by extremely high or low-income earners, and that there are other underlying factors affecting yearly earnings. The data is also limited to those who graduated from state public high schools. With the data collaboration in effect, the state departments can track differences across gender, level of education and occupation, among other information.
The average pay disparities are more pronounced when taking race and ethnicity into account. In 2022, the average annual earnings for white men who graduated from an in-state public high school back in 2007 was $77,000, while Black men averaged $49,000. Black and Hispanic women averaged about $44,000.
After white men, the earners with highest average annual earnings were Asian men, Asian women, American Indian or Alaska Native men, white women and Hispanic men. Data after 2013 for American Indian or Alaskan Native women were suppressed by the state for confidentiality.
And across all occupations for which there was publicly available data, men led the top seven spots in average yearly earnings. The highest earnings were for men who worked in the utilities industry, earning an average of $122,000 a year. Following them were men working in finance or insurance, men involved in the management of companies and men working in the information industry. The highest paid industry for Connecticut women is the professional, scientific, and technical services industry, where they earned an average of $77,000.