Dhaka: The average women worker makes the most money she will ever earn a full 25 years before she is likely to retire.

Between the ages of 20 and 40, the average pay for women ticks up slightly every five years until topping off at $49,000, where it stays through age 65, according to data released by salary comparison site PayScale on Thursday, reported the Market Watch.

But men, on the other hand, see their salaries grow all the way until they are at least 50, when their median earnings hit $75,000.

An ‘obvious explanation’ for the difference in money making between men and women is that women take time off from work to have kids and return lacking the necessary skills to move up. But the reason for the divergence at middle age is not that simple, said Heidi Hartmann, president of the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank

‘There are other factors at play that result in women reaching their peak earnings potential well before men,’ Hartmann says.

One of the dominating explanations for the trend: female-dominated jobs, such as teaching and nursing — tend to be less specialised —don’t demand the string of promotions and pay premiums that firms typically use to keep their best performers around, says Hartmann.

‘Though professions that fit this bill, such as law and engineering, have certainly become more open to women than in previous years, they’re still not as gender-integrated as they could be, Hartmann further says.’

 ‘It’s not really a wage gap, it’s a jobs gap,’ says Katie Bardaro, PayScale’s lead economist.

But even when men and women choose the same types of jobs, women get paid less, PayScale found.

‘Moreover, the gap in pay only grows as men and women climb the corporate ladder. Women executives get paid 6.1% less on average than their male counterparts, PayScale found. Regular rank-and-file workers have a pay gap of just 2.2%.’

‘There’s discrimination,’ Hartmann says. ‘I think that a lot of pay is still based on the head of household model.’

‘In other words, men get paid more because the expectation is that they’re earning money for their families, whereas women’s salaries are thought of as simply a ‘nice to have’ for a family, she says.

‘There’s a heck of a lot of inefficiency the way supervisors set wages,’ Hartmann says.

The study may in part explain why women appear to be shyer about voicing their commitment to their families.

52% of men say they prioritise their home life over work at least one or two times a month, versus 46% of women, according to PayScale.

‘Women — even if they do it — don’t want to say that they do it, because they’re worried they’re being judged for it,’ Bardero said.