Newly released data by the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum (NAPAWF) identified April 5 as this year’s Equal Pay Day for Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) women, representing the date that the earnings of AANHPI women matched what white, non-Hispanic men earned the previous year.
According to the NAPAWF, AANHPI women earn an average of 80 cents for every dollar earned by white, non-Hispanic men.
However, certain ethnic groups, such as Nepali and Bangladeshi women, face more significant wage disparities, earning only 48 cents for every dollar. This means that their wage “catch-up” date would be further into the calendar year.
Typically, an AANHPI woman working full-time loses nearly $6,700 per year due to the wage gap. Considering the impact of the gap accumulating over a 40-year career, individual AANHPI women stand to lose approximately $268,000 each. Some communities of AANHPI women will lose more than $1 million over their lifetime because of the pay gap.
To mitigate the impact of this wage gap, AANHPI women are frequently compelled to work extended hours, take on multiple jobs and delay retirement.
Additionally, many AANHPI women reside in multigenerational households, where they take on the responsibility of supporting their children, elderly parents and, in some cases, extended family.
“Our wages touch every aspect of our lives. It impacts our ability to access health care and make decisions about if, when, and how we start and support a family,” said Sung Yeon Choimorrow, NAPAWF’s executive director.
“When we examine wages using disaggregated data, we find that it upends the dangerous ‘model minority’ myth and the false idea that all Asian Americans are high-achieving immigrants and from financially prosperous communities.”
This year, in an effort to more accurately represent the economic experiences of AANHPI women, the NAPAWF has expanded its data to include the wages of part-time and seasonal workers in addition to those of full-time workers.
In order to raise awareness about the effects of the wage gap on AANHPI women, NAPAWF also launched a social media campaign featuring the hashtags #AANHPIEqualPay, #AANHPIEqualPayDay, #NotYourModelMinority and #DisaggregateData.
