During World War II, when "Rosie the Riveter" entered the workforce to fill jobs vacated by men who had gone off to war, the National War Labor Board encouraged employers to pay them a wage similar to what men would make for the same job.

That didn't happen, of course, and when the men came home from war, they took their jobs back at higher rates of pay.

In the 1950s, women in full-time jobs earned about 60 cents for every dollar men made for similar work.

The U.S, Congress voted the Equal Pay Act into law in 1963. That law requires equal pay for equal or substantially equal work without regard to sex.

After the passage of the Equal Pay Act, some women even received back pay.

The courts expanded on the law. In 1970, an appeals court ruled that jobs did not have to be identical, just substantially equal, to qualify for equal pay. Prior to that ruling, an employer was able to evade the law by changing a woman's job title or making a small change in her duties.

A 1974 decision in the U.S. Supreme court ruled that employers could not pay women less just because the "going market rate" for women was lower. An employer could no longer justify higher wages for men just because men would not work for the wages paid to women.

Until that law took effect, it was not unusual for classified want ads to have separate sections for men and women. Sometimes the same ad ran in both sections, with a higher wage listed for men.

On page 5, Shirley Pyron remembers entering the workforce with some specialized accounting skills. Even after she had several years of experience, she often earned less than boys who came in to the company for summer jobs.

Her experience was not unusual for that time, but conditions have improved.

Figures from 1999 show women receiving about 75 cents for each dollar paid to men. By 2005, that figure was up to about 80 cents. Some of that difference comes about because women may leave their career path for motherhood. Woman have also been concentrated in some lower-paying fields. But women are still sometimes paid less for doing the same job as men.

Will the wage gap continue to narrow? The latest figures are encouraging, with women under 25 making about 93 percent of men's wages. But it's too soon to tell if women are still pushed towards fields which will have lower long-term potential than the fields chosen by men.

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