The gender wage gap is much narrower now than it was at the start of the revolutionary decade of the 1960s, when long-standing barriers to women’s educational achievement and employment success began to be dismantled and the first of a series of critical equal employment opportunity standards were enacted by Congress. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the ratio of women’s to men’s earnings was 76.6 in 2002, for full-time workers employed year-round. The comparable figure in 1960 was 60.7.