Last year, for the first time in two decades, the gender wage gap widened, with men’s median earnings rising 3% while women’s grew only 1.5%. This backsliding surprised some, in part because it defies widely held beliefs in the U.S. that social progress unfolds automatically and steadily over time. Such conventional wisdom holds that each successive generation will become more egalitarian and enjoy more opportunities than the last. According to this view, reaching gender equality is “inevitable”; it just takes time.

But the research tells a different story. In fact, social scientists find that the movement toward gender equality has actually stalled in recent decades: Women’s labor force participation has leveled off, men and women remain concentrated into different occupations, and women continue to shoulder significantly more housework and childcare than men.

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