For full-time, year-round workers, Oklahoma women make $0.81 for every dollar men do, ranking 41/51 states. California leads the nation in pay equity, with women earning $0.89 for every $1 men make. Women in Louisiana fare the worst, earning $0.73 for every dollar earned by their male counterparts.
What women who work full-time, year round were paid for every dollar paid to men in 2025.
Source: National Women’s Law Center
The gender wage gap is the difference between median earnings of women relative to median earnings of men. It is based on full-time, year round workers.
The gender wage gap is not the same as equal pay. Equal pay refers to a legal requirement that within an organization, “male and female staff members who are engaged in equal or similar work or work of equal value must receive equal pay and other workplace benefits.”
The gender pay gap is a more comprehensive measure of the difference in average earnings of men and women. It reflects not only pay disparities for similar career paths, but also broader factors that influence earning potential over time, such as caregiving responsibilities, workplace culture, and differences in education or career path that impact long-term earnings.
If equal pay were a reality in Oklahoma, the poverty rate for working women in the state would be reduced almost by half and their earnings would increase by about $5.4 billion a year. It’s not difficult to imagine what kind of effect that would have on families living without enough resources to care for one another. Women-led, single households especially would find it far easier to work health care, housing, food, and other necessities into the budget regularly (see Women Experiencing Poverty).
This is an especially urgent issue for women of color, who face more severe pay inequity than their white counterparts. Among full-time, year-round workers in Oklahoma:
The gender pay gap has only slightly narrowed over the past 20 years, decreasing by only 4% from 2003 to 2023 (81% to 85% respectively, for the percentage of women’s earnings compared to men). Even though women have increased their presence in higher-paying, traditionally male-majority industries, they continue to be overrepresented in lower-paying occupations relative to their share of the workforce.
While girls and young women often do better at school compared to their male counterparts, there is a tendency for them to end up concentrated in employment sectors which pay less (see Women with a High School Degree and Women with a College Degree). This is certainly true in Oklahoma, as 66.2% of employees in low-paying sectors of the workforce are women. Higher-paying sectors like banking, finance, and technology remain male-dominated.
Another contributing factor to the enduring wage gap are the challenges women face in striking “work-life balance.” Women are far more likely to take on caregiving responsibilities, which can be difficult to manage in conjunction with a full-time job (especially when their workplace does not offer support in this area).
Research has shown that being a mother can reduce women’s earnings, while fatherhood more often increases men’s. After having children, women are more likely to take maternity leave, work fewer hours, or move into less demanding positions to accommodate caregiving responsibilities, all of which limit ones’ earnings. Yet when men become fathers their wages increase, sometimes even surpassing those of childless men – a phenomenon known as the “fatherhood wage premium“. This dynamic creates a “motherhood penalty” for women, but a “fatherhood bonus” for men. In Oklahoma, mothers’ median annual earnings are only about 69% of fathers’ — the sixth-largest gap in the nation.
This issue brief was written by Metriarch staff as part of our Data Lookbook.
Suggested citation
Metriarch. “Economic Factors,” Data Lookbook (2025). URL: metriarchok.org/gender-pay-gap.
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