Study Says Gender Gap in Pay Starts Early

The pay gap between educated women and men begins as soon as they start their careers, a new study shows. The study, released on Wednesday by the American Association of University Women, found that in 2009, women who had graduated college a year earlier and worked full time were paid 82 percent as much as their male counterparts, a slight improvement from the 80 percent a similar study found in 2001. The pay gap has often been attributed to women entering lower-paying professions, but the study found that a difference persisted even after controlling for that factor.