Washington — The rites of spring bring warmer weather, baseball and the time when women's annual earnings finally catch up to what men earned last year.

Because full-time working women still earn only 77 cents for every dollar men earn, it takes them nearly 16 months to earn what men make in a year for doing the same work.

For minority women, the wage gap is even larger, so black women don't catch up to white men until late May, and Hispanic women don't catch up until mid-September.

Equal Pay Day is observed today. On this dubious landmark, critics have pointed to the lifestyle "choices" of women to account for the wage gap.

However, evidence suggests other forces are at work.

The gender gap in earnings has been about the same for the past decade, despite the fact that there are more women in the labor force today and their productivity and educational attainment have increased.

The pay gap affects women at all income levels and across a wide range of occupations, and it widens as women grow older.

A 2003 Government Accountability Office study that I commissioned with Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., showed that when occupation, marital status, job tenure, industry and race are accounted for, women still earn 80 cents for every dollar men earn.

Estimates of how much women stand to lose over their lifetime due to unequal pay practices range from $700,000 for a high school graduate to $2 million for doctors and lawyers, according to the WAGE project.

The glass ceiling for women in the workplace may have some cracks in it, but it certainly hasn't been shattered.

Women continue to bump up against everything from subtle biases relating to gender stereotypes about hiring, pay raises and promotions.

They face more egregious acts of discrimination against pregnancy and caregiving responsibilities.

Skeptics argue that women choose flexible work schedules or lower paying jobs in order to have more time with family, thereby creating a self-inflicted wage gap.

The reality is that very few women have the "choice" to stay home with their children, since most American families today rely on two-wage earners.

It goes without saying that single mothers don't have much of a choice about working, either.

In 2005, nearly three-quarters of women were in the labor force, including nearly two-thirds of women with young children.

Moreover, there appears to be a "mommy penalty" and a "daddy bonus" related to pay. The Government Accountability Office has found that women with children earn about 2.5 percent less than women without children, while men with children enjoy an earnings boost of 2.1 percent, compared to men without children.

Passing the Paycheck Fairness Act that's before Congress would take critical steps to prevent discrimination from ever occurring.

It would empower women to negotiate better pay and toughen penalties for employers that break the law.

The lack of quality, affordable child care and workplace flexibility in this country for women and men also limit families' choices regarding how to balance work and family.

Mothers are often forced out of good jobs due to inflexible work schedules.

But more companies are discovering that doing right by families improves their bottom lines — by lowering health-care costs, turnover rates of trained workers and absenteeism — and they should be encouraged to do more.

Our country will not stay competitive in the world economy until we address these serious problems.

So we have again asked the Government Accountability Office to investigate the policies other countries use to increase workforce attachment among women and low-wage, low-skilled workers.

While there are clearly signs of progress for women in the workplace and in society — we now have the first woman speaker of the House and a woman running for president — we must continue to strive for fair pay and for all women, not just an elite few, to have real employment choices.

Equal Pay Day should come well before we see any signs of spring.

Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney, D-N.Y., is the senior Democrat on the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.