The American workforce is still surprisingly segregated by gender, and this separation does not seem to benefit women. Two-thirds of working women are concentrated in only five percent of occupational categories. And in the few fields where more than 90 percent of workers are women – like childcare and food preparation – the pay tends to be low. Compare this low pay to male-dominated industries (there are a lot of them). Almost one in four job categories, such as construction work and trucking consist of workforces that are almost exclusively male. And those same jobs pay up to 30 percent more than traditionally female jobs like secretarial work.

For this week's work segment, we're asking, How do we know if we're getting paid what we're worth? Is it ever okay to ask our peers about their salaries for comparison's sake? And what can we do if our salary seems to fall below our worth?

Beth Kobliner, Takeaway work contributor and author of “Get a Financial Life,” guides us through the murky waters of determining our worth — and offers advice on what to do if we believe our value exceeds our paycheck.