Men's 'overwork' widens gender gap in wages

By now, social scientists once predicted, the gender gap in wages should have been as thin as a Roosevelt dime. More and more highly educated women were entering and staying in the workforce - many in lucrative occupations where formerly only men were found. So why has the gap between men and women's hourly pay stopped shrinking? Men's "overwork" has a lot to do with it, according to Kim Weeden, Cornell professor of sociology. She says employers are paying more per hour to workers - and men in particular - who put in exceptionally long workweeks. "Women - even highly educated women - still spend far more time than men on housework and child care," says Weeden, co-author, with Indiana University's Youngjoo Cha (Cornell Ph.D. 2010), of " Overwork and Slow Convergence in the Gender Gap in Wages ," to be published in a forthcoming issue of American Sociological Review. ("Overwork" is defined as 50 or more hours a week at a single job.