Equal Pay for Equal Work:

Wage Discrimination against Women

Andrea Schroeder


The Women’s Equal Rights Movement has made dramatic progress in the last one hundred years. As a result, a woman can now vote, choose almost any career, and defend her human right to happiness. But, in spite of the progress made in the area of equal rights, wage problems in the workplace still exist which deny women equal pay for equal work.

 

SUCCESSES

Women are closing the gender gap in workplace and higher education. They are starting to climb the corporate ladder and are moving into managerial positions. Forty-three percent of managers are women today as opposed to the nineteen percent who were managers in 1970 ("Almost, But Not Quite, Equal" 1). Women are also receiving a higher level of education. They earned forty-five percent of the law degrees in 1994 compared to eight percent in 1972. Education is an important contributing factor to the progress being made in reducing the discrepancy in wages between genders. With women becoming better educated than 20 years ago, potential for a higher salary is greater. Today, women earn fifty percent of all college degrees and forty percent of all medical degrees. It is, perhaps, because of education that women’s wages grew, on average, twenty percent faster than men’s from 1920-1980 (Clark 174). The situation is not that fewer men have been attending college, but that a greater number of women are able, encouraged and willing to take the next step in education than ever before.

 

PROBLEMS

Despite all that has been accomplished, wage equality between men and women has not yet been reached. Overall, women only earn 74% of what men do in America (Equal Pay). In the higher job positions, with higher wages, there is a lack of female presence. An example of this situation is in the American school districts. Even though many elementary school teachers are women, only 5% of school superintendents are women (Hankin 114). Also, despite the growing number of women managers, only 5% are senior managers in the top 2,000 companies (Clark 173). Joseph N. Hankin is the President of Westchester Community College, which is a college committed to training working women to re-enter the workforce in new careers or in their own business. He comments that "on a scale of 1 to 10, we [society] are a three" (114).  There is a concern that the percent of women’s wages to men’s wages is falling again. Women’s median weekly wages are shown from 1979, 1992, and 1999 in the figure 1.1 below.
 
Figure 1.1

   Source: Data taken from Koretz, www.businessweek.com
 

LAWS

The American Government has considered only limited laws concerning equal pay for equal work. The Equal Opportunity Act of 1996 has a section, 4c, which could be interpreted in such a way as to deny jobs to women instead of giving equal opportunity to them. At a glance, this bill seems beneficial. When Charles Canady, a representative from Florida, was asked what he thought of this bill, he replied, "It embraces the principle of nondiscrimination." He also stated, "This bill would prohibit granting anyone special preference on the basis of race or gender" (qtd. in "Equal Opportunity?" 92). However, the wording in this bill could be twisted to hurt women instead of help women. The first section states, "Sex is a bona fide occupational qualification reasonably necessary to the normal operation of the entity subject to the classification" (Equal…" 92). Nancy Zirkin, director of government relations for American Association of University Women, comments that "This loose wording creates a dangerous loophole that could entitle an employer to claim, for whatever reason he might give, that gender is a requirement of the job" (qtd. in "Equal…" 92). The second section declares, "The classification is designed to protect the privacy of individuals." Kathy Rodgers, executive director of the National Organization for Women Legal Defense and Education fund, says that employers that have no female locker rooms or restrooms, or that have an all male environment could argue that hiring a woman would invade a man’s privacy ("Equal…" 92).

Even if stronger laws existed, the national government would still face the difficulty of persuading the state governments to agree to new labor laws. The state governments have their own laws, and they don’t want to change ("Across Globe, Women Earn Less" 10). The result is that the laws are either old or very different from one state to the next.

 

WORKING WOMEN WITH FAMILIES

Many women decide to have families, which can cause them to be out of the office more often. If women in general have trouble receiving equal pay for equal work, then working women with families have it even worse. The 500,000 member conservative group Concerned Women for America states that,


  •                               
    Women have the opportunity to earn as much as men…but they often have different goals and values. The fact that more women are in lower-paying professions is not  due to rampant discrimination, as feminists charge…Many women choose such professions voluntarily because they have decided to keep their families the top priority in their lives (Clark 174).

    • Society has put a bundle of guilt on the working mother. Between home and work, women have a large burden resting on their shoulders. According to the Population Reference Bureau: "Despite heir added duties outside the home, women still do 2/3 of the housework and child care — suggesting the ‘equality’ isn’t yet as equal as it seems" ("Almost…Equal" 1). There are women who have never had children that receive almost as much pay as men do. Females ages 27-33 without children have wages reaching 98% of men’s (Clark 174). This gives the message that a woman can not be successful and have a family at the same time, even though men have done so for hundreds of years.

     

    SUMMARY

    Even with the amount of success that has occurred from the women’s movement, problems still remain to be overcome. More women are working in traditionally male-dominated jobs, but receive only about 74 cents to a man’s dollar. And women are still discouraged by society in general to pursue a male-dominated job field, and have to balance family life with their careers.

    One step that needs to be taken before women can receive equal wages is for the government to recognize the problem of discrepancy in salary then make laws which require employers to hire and promote without discrimination. The laws the government has ratified have many loopholes by which employers can legally discriminate on the basis of gender.

    Another problem to be confronted is the stress placed on working women with families. Since men can work and have a family simultaneously, women should not have to bear a drop in wages if they are to have a family. Also society shouldn’t pressure women to carry the burden of household work, family car, and a career; these should be shared experiences with their partner.

    The government, society, and women themselves need to realize what can be accomplished and what blocks the way. And then with those complications resolved, women stand a better chance of receiving equal pay for equal work.

     

    Works Cited

    "Across Globe, Women Earn Less." The Des Moines Register
    30 July 1996, sec. Business: 10.

    "Almost, But Not Quite, Equal." US News & World Report
    13 Jan. 1997: 1.
     
    "Clark, Charles S., et al. "Feminism’s Future."
    CQ Researcher 28 Feb. 1997: 169-192

    "Equal Opportunity?" Glamour Aug. 1996: 92.
     
    Equal Pay. Home page. Mar. 1998.
    Feminist Women’s Health Center
    http://www.fwhc.org/equalpay.htm

    Hankin, Joseph N., "The Gains Working Women Have Made."
    Vital Speeches of the Day 1 Dec. 1996: 113-115.
     
    Koretz, Gene. "But What of the Wage Gap?" Business Week
    23 Oct. 1997. 11 Oct. 1999.
    http://www.businessweek.com/1997/44/b3551078.htm