If You Can Make it Here, You Still Earn Less: Gender Wage Gaps and Occupational Segregation in New York City

New York City, long a leader in pay-equity policy, presents a paradox: despite adopting salary-history bans, pay-transparency laws, and family-leave programs, its gender pay gap has stalled over the past two decades. Using an extended Oaxaca–Blinder decomposition, this study examines why wage inequality persists in one of the world’s most progressive, high-wage urban economies. Occupational segregation remains the dominant driver of inequality, as women, particularly women of color, remain clustered in lower-paid sectors. Even after accounting for education, experience, and other productivity factors, structural dynamics tied to the organization and valuation of work continue to disadvantage women. Drawing on feminist economic theory, the study argues that New York’s experience illustrates the limits of formal equality policies and offers lessons for addressing gendered wage inequality in metropolitan labor markets.