Giving Compass' Take:

· Pacific Standard talks with Amy Westervelt, developer of the Invisible Labor Calculator, about the gender pay gap and helping women determine the monetary value of their uncompensated "invisible" labor.

· What is "invisible labor"? How can donors advocate for equal pay for women?

· Read more about unequal pay, gender bias, and what to do about it.

Activists coined the phrase "equal pay for equal work" during the fight for the 1963 Equal Pay Act. Fifty-six years later, the phrase is still making headlines. Senator and presidential candidate Kamala Harris proposed a policy that would address the gender wage gap in the paid labor market. Other candidates have supported similar action and legislation.

The average woman in the United States makes 80 cents for every dollar her male counterpart makes. These numbers only shrink for women of color, and they exist at every level of education. Yet, as important as these figures are, they also elide all the vital behind-the-scenes work that keeps business and society running smoothly. How much is that labor worth—and what does it have to do with the pay gap?

To answer these questions, I spoke with Amy Westervelt, a writer and the author of the 2018 book Forget "Having It All": How America Messed Up Motherhood—and How to Fix It. Westervelt developed the Invisible Labor Calculator so that people, specifically women, could figure out the market value of their uncompensated labor. The calculator uses data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics to tell users how much they'd pay someone else to do the work that they do for free. Our interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Read the full article about the gender pay gap by Leah Crowder at Pacific Standard.