Equal Pay
Should employers be required to pay men and women the same salary for the same job?
We agree with the Justice Democrats:
"We support the Paycheck Fairness Act."
The Paycheck Fairness Act will help secure equal pay for equal work for all Americans. The bill would update the Equal Pay Act of 1963, a law that has not been able to achieve its promise of closing the wage gap because of limited enforcement tools and inadequate remedies. The Paycheck Fairness Act would make critical changes to the law, including:
- requiring employers to demonstrate that wage differentials are based on factors other than sex;
- prohibiting retaliation against workers who inquire about their employers’ wage practices or disclose their own wages;
- permitting reasonable comparisons between employees within clearly defined geographical areas to determine fair wages;
- strengthening penalties for equal pay violations;
- directing the Department of Labor to assist employers and collect wage-related data; and
- authorizing additional training for Equal Employment Opportunity Commission staff to better identify and handle wage disputes.
Women are slightly under half (46.8%) of the 157.1 million workers in the civilian labor force, a steep increase from 1960 when they were just one in three (33.4%) of workers.
In 2015, the median annual earnings of women working full-time, year-round were $40,742 compared with men’s $51,212.
This means that women earned only 79.6 cents for every dollar earned by a man for full-time, year round work.
MAJOR REASONS FOR THE GENDER WAGE GAP:
Studies have identified a number of factors that account for a share of the difference in earnings between women and men, including women’s greater likelihood to reduce or leave paid work to care for children or adult family members and the combination of occupational segregation and lower median pay in occupations in which women make up a significant share of all workers employed.
The most recent comprehensive study of earnings, which followed a cohort of women and men across a 30 year period from 1980 to 2010, and thus could control for factors such as differences in occupation and industry and time out of the labor market, found that differences in occupations and industry of employment explained close to half of the difference in women’s and men’s earnings:
DIFFERENCES IN OCCUPATIONS (32.9%)
In other words, nearly one-third of the gap in earnings is due to the fact that women tend to work in different occupations from men, and that the occupations in which women are the large majority of workers have lower earnings than those in which most workers are men. For example, women are only a quarter of workers in computer and mathematical occupations, which tend
to have earnings well above average.
DIFFERENCES IN SECTORS: (17.6%)
Nearly one-fifth of the gap (17.6 percent) is due to differences in the sectors in which women and men work; a supervisor or human resources manager working in manufacturing, for example, may have higher earnings than a supervisor working in a restaurant.
DIFFERENCES IN TIME SPENT OUT OF WORK (14.1%)
Differences in the time that women and men spent out of paid work were found to explain 14.1 percent of their overall difference in earnings.
DIFFERENCES IN WAGE NEGOTIATION:
Research suggests that differences in negotiating behaviors between women and men may partly explain differences in starting salaries and salary growth over time. When individual wage negotiations are not explicitly encouraged, women are less likely than men to negotiate aggressively or to question salaries suggested to them by their employer or manager. Yet, when women negotiate as aggressively as men, they may be viewed more negatively than men. Negotiating a lower starting salary can have a long term impact on earnings.
DIFFERENCES IN WILLINGNESS TO WORK LONG HOURS:
While both women and men earn wage premiums for working long hours, women are less likely than men to work jobs with long hours. Moreover, when women do work over 50 hours, the premium they earn is proportionally lower than men’s. The studies conclude that the growth of a long-hours culture in professional and managerial jobs presents a major barrier to closing the gender wage gap because, given the unequal gender division of unpaid family and child care work, women are less likely than men to work in such jobs.
After the impact of all other factors commonly associated with differences in earnings (including education, race, and unionization) are analyzed, an ‘unexplained’ share of the wage gap does still remain. There does appear to be a wage gap that is based on gender discrimination, but the amount of that wage gap is less than claimed and varies based on occupation and many other factors.
In 2015, the median annual earnings of women working full-time, year-round were $40,742 compared with men’s $51,212.
This means that women earned only 79.6 cents for every dollar earned by a man for full-time, year round work.
MAJOR REASONS FOR THE GENDER WAGE GAP:
Studies have identified a number of factors that account for a share of the difference in earnings between women and men, including women’s greater likelihood to reduce or leave paid work to care for children or adult family members and the combination of occupational segregation and lower median pay in occupations in which women make up a significant share of all workers employed.
The most recent comprehensive study of earnings, which followed a cohort of women and men across a 30 year period from 1980 to 2010, and thus could control for factors such as differences in occupation and industry and time out of the labor market, found that differences in occupations and industry of employment explained close to half of the difference in women’s and men’s earnings:
DIFFERENCES IN OCCUPATIONS (32.9%)
In other words, nearly one-third of the gap in earnings is due to the fact that women tend to work in different occupations from men, and that the occupations in which women are the large majority of workers have lower earnings than those in which most workers are men. For example, women are only a quarter of workers in computer and mathematical occupations, which tend
to have earnings well above average.
DIFFERENCES IN SECTORS: (17.6%)
Nearly one-fifth of the gap (17.6 percent) is due to differences in the sectors in which women and men work; a supervisor or human resources manager working in manufacturing, for example, may have higher earnings than a supervisor working in a restaurant.
DIFFERENCES IN TIME SPENT OUT OF WORK (14.1%)
Differences in the time that women and men spent out of paid work were found to explain 14.1 percent of their overall difference in earnings.
DIFFERENCES IN WAGE NEGOTIATION:
Research suggests that differences in negotiating behaviors between women and men may partly explain differences in starting salaries and salary growth over time. When individual wage negotiations are not explicitly encouraged, women are less likely than men to negotiate aggressively or to question salaries suggested to them by their employer or manager. Yet, when women negotiate as aggressively as men, they may be viewed more negatively than men. Negotiating a lower starting salary can have a long term impact on earnings.
DIFFERENCES IN WILLINGNESS TO WORK LONG HOURS:
While both women and men earn wage premiums for working long hours, women are less likely than men to work jobs with long hours. Moreover, when women do work over 50 hours, the premium they earn is proportionally lower than men’s. The studies conclude that the growth of a long-hours culture in professional and managerial jobs presents a major barrier to closing the gender wage gap because, given the unequal gender division of unpaid family and child care work, women are less likely than men to work in such jobs.
After the impact of all other factors commonly associated with differences in earnings (including education, race, and unionization) are analyzed, an ‘unexplained’ share of the wage gap does still remain. There does appear to be a wage gap that is based on gender discrimination, but the amount of that wage gap is less than claimed and varies based on occupation and many other factors.
We agree with the Peace and Freedom Party Platform:
"We demand full equality for women in all aspects of life. Sexism is a major instrument for teaching relations of domination and inequality and for keeping one- half of the workforce underpaid or unpaid. We work to end oppressive sex roles in society. We must ensure equal rights and responsibilities in child raising. Unions must do more to organize women and promote women's leadership. We demand:
- Adoption of an equal rights amendment.
- Equal pay for equal work, and for work of comparable worth.
- Enforce non-discrimination in hiring and promotion with affirmative action where necessary."
We agree with Andrew Yang 2020:
"The federal government must do more to ensure that anyone performing the same work in substantially similar situations should receive equal pay.
Women are often under-compensated because their work is not properly valued by employers, who believe that they will accept less than they are worth. We need to empower women to get paid what they deserve by their employers and make the workplace fair to women. This includes, of course, women getting equal pay for the work that they do."
