Despite the rise of the feminist movement, equal pay and employment legislation and affirmative action during the 1960s and 1970s, women's wages continued to hover at around 60 percent of men's. But starting in the Reagan years, the gender gap in wages began to decline dramatically. By some measures, the ratio of women's earnings to men's rose to nearly 80 percent.

The reason has less to do with politics or protests than with the realities of the labor market. After World War II, many of the record numbers of women who sought jobs had been out of the labor force for considerable periods of time, raising their children. These women diluted the skill level of the rapidly expanding group of employed women.

Today's working women, particularly those younger than 40, are much closer to men in work experience. As a result:

• The hourly earnings of women ages 25 to 64 were 74 percent of the earnings of men in 1992, up from 62 percent in 1979.

• When only women ages 25 to 34 were considered, the ratio was 87 percent.

The work experience gained by these younger women, reinforced by a rise in female enrollments in higher education, is likely to have an even greater impact on women's future earnings. The gender pay gap has been narrowing about 1 percent per year since the late 1970s. An analysis of factors responsible found:

The increase in women's years of work experience relative to men's accounts for about 25 to 30 percent of the narrowing gap.

• More on-the-job training for women than for men accounts for another 35 to 40 percent.

• A greater concentration of men in low-skill, blue-collar occupations - in which wages have significantly declined - accounts for about 20 percent of the wage convergence.

When earnings comparisons are restricted to men and women with similar experience and life situations, the difference in earnings is small. For example, among people ages 27 to 33 who have never had a child, the earnings of women are about 98 percent of men's.

Source: June Ellenoff O'Neill, "The Shrinking Pay Gap," Wall Street Journal, October 7, 1994.