The gender earnings gap among full-time, year-round (FTYR) workers narrowed sharply in 2025. According to the Census Bureau’s latest annual income report, women working FTYR earned 83.9 cents for every dollar earned by men, up from 80.6 cents in 2024. It was the largest one-year increase in the female-to-male earnings ratio in the historical series. Women's real median annual earnings increased 3.2 percent in 2025, while the change in men's earnings was not statistically significant.

What changed in 2025 to produce such a large one-year narrowing? 

Using the 2025 and 2026 Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement (CPS ASEC) public-use microdata, we looked at changes in women's occupations, earnings within occupations, and earnings across racial and ethnic groups to understand what was behind the change. The narrowing of the female-to-male earnings ratio occurred in many occupations but was not shared equally across racial and ethnic groups.

Did women move into higher-paying occupations? 

One possibility is that women's median earnings rose because the jobs women held changed. If women shifted into higher-paying occupations between 2024 and 2025, the national median could rise even if earnings within occupations changed little.

To test this, we calculated what the 2025 earnings ratio would have been if women had worked in the same mix of major occupations as in 2024, while keeping their actual 2025 earnings within each occupation group.

This hypothesis was not supported. The actual female-to-male earnings ratio was 83.95 percent in 2025. Under the alternative scenario, it would have been 83.76 percent, a difference of less than two-tenths of a percentage point.

If shifts in where women worked were an important explanation for the narrowing, removing them should lower the ratio much more. Nearly all of the 2025 increase remains, so changes across major occupation groups explain very little of the narrowing.

Did the gap narrow within occupations?

To examine this, we calculated the female-to-male median earnings ratio separately for each major occupation group in 2024 and 2025. Among the 19 groups with sufficient sample sizes for comparison, the ratio increased in 14.

The female-to-male earnings ratio increased across a broad range of occupations, including education, computer and mathematical occupations, business and financial operations, and healthcare practitioners and technical occupations.

This helps explain why holding women's mix of occupations constant had so little effect on the 2025 national female-to-male earnings ratio. The gender earnings gap did not narrow primarily because women moved between major occupations. Instead, women's earnings rose relative to men's within many of the occupation groups in which they were already working.

Did the narrowing extend across racial and ethnic groups? 

The national female-to-male earnings ratio does not show whether earnings changed similarly for women across racial and ethnic groups. To examine this, we compared changes in median FTYR earnings for White non-Hispanic, Black, Asian, and Hispanic women between 2024 and 2025.

After adjusting for inflation, median FTYR earnings increased 4.4 percent for White non-Hispanic women, 2.8 percent for Asian women, and 2.4 percent for Hispanic women. For Black women, median earnings fell 1.7 percent.

Changes in earnings alone do not show how each group of women fared relative to men. To analyze changes in racial and ethnic earnings gaps, we compared the earnings of each group of women with those of White non-Hispanic men. The gap narrowed for White non-Hispanic, Asian, and Hispanic women, but widened for Black women. The gap narrowed by 4.0 percentage points for White non-Hispanic women, 3.5 points for Asian women, and 1.9 points for Hispanic women. For Black women, the gap widened by 0.6 percentage points.

White non-Hispanic women had both the largest increase in real median earnings and the largest narrowing of the earnings gap compared to White non-Hispanic men. Black women’s earnings moved in the opposite direction: real median earnings declined and the gap widened. 

How much did the change in White women's earnings matter for the national ratio?

White non-Hispanic women had the largest increase in real median earnings among the racial and ethnic groups examined, but that alone does not show how much it mattered for the national female-to-male earnings ratio. To measure this, we recalculated the 2025 ratio using the 2024 distribution of earnings for White non-Hispanic women, scaled to the number working FTYR in 2025. For all other workers, we retained their observed 2025 earnings.

Under this counterfactual, the national female-to-male earnings ratio falls from 83.95 percent to 81.02 percent, a difference of 2.93 percentage points. Repeating the calculation separately for the other groups produced much smaller differences: 0.23 percentage points for Asian women, 0.11 points for Hispanic women, and 0.07 points for Black women.

The difference could partly reflect White non-Hispanic women making up a larger share of women working FTYR in 2025. However, their share was essentially unchanged, at 55.4 percent in both years. 

Among the racial and ethnic groups examined, the national 2025 earnings ratio was far more sensitive to the change in White non-Hispanic women’s earnings than to earnings changes among the other groups. 

Conclusion

The narrowing of the gender earnings gap in 2025 does not appear to reflect women moving into different major occupation groups. Women's earnings rose relative to men's in most of the occupation groups examined.

The national gender earnings gap narrowed, but not all women experienced earnings gains. White non-Hispanic women had the largest increase in real median earnings among the groups examined, while Black women’s real median earnings fell 1.7 percent. The national earnings ratio was also far more sensitive to the change in White non-Hispanic women’s earnings than to earnings changes among the other racial and ethnic groups examined. 

This analysis cannot say why White non-Hispanic women's earnings rose so much in 2025. The ASEC shows where earnings changed but cannot distinguish among raises, promotions, bonuses, or employer changes.

Methods

This analysis uses the U.S. Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement (CPS ASEC) and Census historical Table P-38 to compare 2024 and 2025 earnings among full-time, year-round (FTYR) workers.

The occupation counterfactual holds women’s mix across 23 major occupation groups at its 2024 level. The race and ethnicity counterfactuals separately substitute each group’s 2024 female earnings distribution while retaining its 2025 population and other workers’ observed 2025 earnings.