Her Pay Slips in the Years Care Starts
Women who were 25 to 34 in 2015 earned 90 percent of the hourly pay of men their age. By 2025, women from that group earned 85 percent. Pew reads the drop as the years when family care usually starts.
The two paychecks start out closer than they finish.
Women who were 25 to 34 in 2015 earned 90 cents for every dollar men their age earned in an hour. By 2025, women from that group earned 85 cents.
Kim Parker led the Pew Research Center report, published October 22. The drop shows up about five to ten years into work, around the time family care usually starts. Earlier groups of young women lost ground in those years too.
The 85 cents comes from the 2025 pay survey: women who were 25 to 34 in 2015, compared with men their age. Pew does not call the same women back a decade later.
For everyone with a job in 2025, women earned 86 cents. Pew says caregiving explains at least part of that national gap, and that it has held fairly steady since about 2000.
Once there is a child
The hourly rate only counts people who have a job. In 2025, 74 percent of women with a child under 18 were working or looking for work. Men with a child under 18 were at 94 percent.
Among adults overall, women trail men in the labor force by 9 points. Among parents, the gap is 20.
When the paychecks are close
Pew calls a marriage egalitarian when each spouse earns 40 to 60 percent of the couple's pay. In 2022, that was 29 percent of different-sex marriages, up from 11 percent in 1972.
The hours at home did not come out even. In time diaries from 2016 through 2021, wives in those marriages did 4.6 hours of housework a week. Husbands did 1.9. Spread across a week, that is about 40 minutes a day for her and about 16 for him.
Caregiving sat closer, 6.9 hours a week for wives and 5.1 for husbands. Husbands had more free time, about 25 hours a week to about 22.
The diaries stop in 2021, and they cover different-sex couples only. An even split on the paystubs can still leave her with the longer list.
Short at home and at the job
In March, Pew asked full-time working parents about the past year. Sixty-seven percent of mothers said they could not give their all at home because they were juggling work and family. Half of fathers said that.
At work, 56 percent of those mothers and 38 percent of the fathers said they fell short for the same reason. Fifty-two percent of the mothers said being a parent makes it harder to move up. Thirty-eight percent of the fathers said so.
Working from home did not make the balance easier. Fifty-two percent of working parents who work from home most days said the balance is difficult. Fifty-four percent who almost never work from home said the same.
Paid family or medical leave would be very helpful for 84 percent of working parents. Half said their job offers it.
The texting does not stop at 18
In a late 2023 survey, among parents whose child ages 18 to 34 lives somewhere else, 81 percent of mothers text that child at least a few times a week. So do 63 percent of fathers.
Parents who still live with that child were not asked. If your 24-year-old is down the hall, this number is about someone else's house.
Among adults who have a parent, a spouse, or a partner age 65 or older, 28 percent of women and 23 percent of men said in September 2025 that they are the caregiver.
Among full-time workers who regularly help an aging parent, 40 percent of the women said it has hurt their emotional well-being. Twenty-two percent of the men said that. On money, 36 percent of the women and 22 percent of the men said the help has hurt.
Pew does not split these figures by race or ancestry. If the paychecks in your house are close, look at who did the housework before you call the week even. Say which of the older parent's appointments is yours.