(Bloomberg) -- It looked pretty good for young women's earnings in 2011.

The pay gap separating women and men aged 25to 34 was the smallest ever recorded by the Pew ResearchCenter, with young women earning 97 cents for every dollar paidtheir young male counterparts.

For the rising generation of U.S. workers, at least, therewas very nearly income equality.

Then things started going backwards. By 2015, the pay gap for25- to 34-year-olds had widened to 90 cents for every man-earneddollar in that demographic, according to new data from Pew.What happened?

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It turns out that what looked like good news for young womenearlier this decade was mostly just bad news for men.

"During the recession, men were much harder hit than women interms of employment losses. They were more likely to be located injobs and industries that took a big hit," said Rakesh Kochhar, aneconomist at Pew. "Rather than women catching up, you're seeing areturn to the historical level."

Women didn't catch up—men slid backwards.

Even taking the recession blip into account, women of all ageshaven't made much progress in the last decade.

The gender-pay gaps for all women and for young women bothhover around the same numbers they did in 2005. Pewhas found that a woman today makes 83 cents to a man's dollar, afinding that has stayed consistent over the last 10 years.That's also consistent with the Bureau of LaborStatistics' findings.

The pay gap for young women is relatively small when compared tothat of women in general because the American workplace punisheswomen with kids.

Young men and women enter the corporate pipeline at the samerates, according to research from McKinsey and Lean In. One surveyfrom Hired even found that women make 2 percent more than menfor entry-level positions. Yet women make up only 17 percent ofC-suite positions, McKinsey and Lean In found.

Women who have children tend to get pushed out of the workplacebecause of a lack of flexible schedules and paid parental leavepolicies. Those who stay in the workforce face what's known asthe "motherhood penalty." For every child a woman has, she loses4 percent in lifetime earnings, a figure purely attributableto bias. New moms come back from leave to fewer responsibilities.When a woman leaves early to pick a kid up from school, she getsjudged.

Men, on the other hand, get a "fatherhood bonus"—a 10 percentbump in earnings for each child.

Paid parental leave policies and flexible schedules would helpnew moms integrate into the workforce. Neither of those things arehappening, so progress reaching pay parity has stagnated. In thelast decade, workplaces have reduced their parental leavepolicies. Even if that trend doesn't push women out of theworkforce, rigid schedules can make it difficult for women to workthe long hours required to make up for the wage gap.

At this point, most jobs still reward long hours—somethingpeople without kids, or most parental responsibilities, cando. "There seems to be a premium placed on working longerhours, which men are more apt to do," said Kochhar.

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