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When it comes to equal pay, Alaska women have it better than their Lower 48 counterparts, but just barely.

On average, Alaska women make 83 percent of what Alaska men make, compared to the national percentage of 78 percent, according to the University of Alaska Fairbanks Women’s Center.

April 22 is Equal Pay Day, a national event established in 1996 by National Committee on Pay Equity to highlight the discrepancy in women and men in the work force. On average, it takes women 16 months to earn what a man earns in a year, the UAF Women’s Center said.

To commemorate Equal Pay Day 2008 at UAF, Martha West will be giving a free lecture, “Seeking Equality for Faculty Women.” West is a professor emerita at the University of California, Davis and an expert on gender discrimination law.

West said the problem at universities extends beyond pay equality to hiring women on an equal basis. She said studies have found both men and women evaluate female applicants lower than male applicants when it comes to hiring.

“Women put down women as well; we’re all in this together,” West said.

But after getting hired, women continue to face inequalities that result in low numbers of women in high positions such as partners in law firms. West said “accumulations of small disadvantages,” a theory that states a slightly lower rank with slightly lower pay combined with a slightly longer time to get promoted eventually adds up and weeds women out of industries.

“The higher up you go, the fewer women you find,” West said.

Women aren’t just losing higher ranks at work. Sine Anahita, an associate professor of sociology at UAF, said that during a career, women will make a quarter of a million dollars less than men. Anahita is covering gender equality unit in her “Social Inequality and Stratification” sociology course that covers inequalities in different situations such as class and disability.

Anahita said her class was outraged to find out how much money women miss out over the course of a career. The issue extends past working women, as families suffer from the loss of money as well.

“If men are threatened or feel accused, it’s not just women. Men are suffering, too,” Anahita said. “In a family, if a woman is bringing 79 percent of what the man earns, that’s money he’s not spending either.”

Kayt Sunwood, the UAF Women’s Center manager, said nationally the jobs with the smallest pay gaps are software engineer and architect.

“It’s interesting because only those areas are making more than male counterparts on average,” Sunwood said.

But there are few women in those fields, she adds.

In medicine and education, women are making 99 and 98 percent of what men make. Anahita and Sunwood said that in addition to West’s lecture, other activities on campus in the past week have included a group of students who acted out negotiation techniques and public programs to educate students about the differences in pay.

During Anahita’s morning class today, her students will be using chalk to write slogans and advertising West’s evening lecture.

“It’s not just women. It’s affecting all of us,” Sunwood said. “We can all make a difference in pay equality.”

Contact staff writer Christi Hang at 456-7590.