By Mariko Lin Chang
This year’s Equal Pay Day falls on April 12, marking how far into 2011 the average woman must work in order to earn what the average man had by the end of 2010. In the 15 years since Equal Pay Day was established, the gender wage gap has barely budged, moving from 74 percent in 1996 to 77 percent in 2010. This amounts to a three-cent increase in women’s wages for every dollar earned by men. Given that women make up half of the workforce, the gender wage gap does not generate the outrage that it should, as is clear from the failure of the Paycheck Fairness Act last November.
Polls confirm that most people believe women and men doing the same job should receive the same pay. But many are unaware of the extent of the problem, believe the wage gap is a result of women’s choices or think that the gap is a relic of the past. Thus, Equal Pay Day is the perfect time for some myth busting.
Myth #1: The wage gap is a result of women’s choices.
We’re less likely to think the wage gap is a problem if we believe it stems from women’s individual choices—to choose one job or field of study over another, to “opt out” of the workforce to raise children, or to fail to negotiate for higher pay. These arguments, prevalent in the media, overlook important research to the contrary. For one, men are perceived as more accomplished than women even when they have the same resumes. As for women “opting out” to become mothers, author Pamela Stone shows [PDF] that many professional women who leave their jobs to engage in full-time caregiving are not “opting out” but are “pushed out”: They are stigmatized and their attempts to stay on the career track are stymied. Correspondingly, Stanford sociologist Shelley Correll found that mothers are less likely to be hired and are offered lower salaries than fathers and women without children.
Furthermore, while it’s true that men are more likely to be working in higher-paid fields, women make less money than men even when they occupy the same jobs. Researchers at the Institute for Women’s Policy Research found that in the largest 108 occupations, men outearn women in all but four: (1) life, physical, and social science technicians, (2) bakers, (3) teacher assistants and (4) dining room and cafeteria attendants and bartender helpers. With respect to negotiation, researchers at Harvard and Carnegie Mellon have demonstrated that although women are less likely to negotiate, they are penalized more heavily than men when they negotiate.
Myth #2: The wage gap is a relic of the past.
Concerns about equal pay may have been mitigated by recent reports that in major cities,
By Mariko Lin Chang
Last week, the Senate Republicans defeated the Paycheck Fairness Act. The bill would have strengthened the Equal Pay Act by providing more effective protections and remedies to victims of sex discrimination in wages, including prohibiting employers from retaliating against employees who discuss their wages with another employee, requiring employers to prove that wage differences between women and men doing the same work are the result of education, training, experience, or other job-related factors, and providing victims of sex discrimination in wages the same legal remedies currently available to those experiencing pay discrimination on the basis of race or national origin.
Was the bill perfect? Probably not (few, if any bills could be considered perfect). But the Republican senators threw the baby out with the bath water.
I think most members of the Senate believe that women should be paid the same amount as men for doing the same job. Yet many did not support the Paycheck Fairness Act. Perhaps their reluctance had to do with partisan politics or opponents’ arguments that it would be bad for business. Regardless of their reasons for not supporting the bill, if bill had been about pay discrimination on the basis of race, I think it would have passed long ago because the political fall-out for failing to oppose racial discrimination is much steeper than failing to oppose sex discrimination.
Why is it OK to continue to allow pay discrimination against women? Why do we accept this as a fact of life? And why should victims of sex discrimination in wages be denied the same legal remedies as victims of racial discrimination?
Issues pertaining to sex discrimination have been relegated to the second-class status of “women’s issues.” And because “women’s issues” have become imbued with divisive issues such as abortion, it has become more politically and socially acceptable to oppose legislation promoting the rights of women–even if it’s the right to equal pay.
Another reason the Paycheck Fairness Act experienced push-back is that many believe pay inequities are a result of women choosing jobs that are more compatible with family responsibilities or of women having less job experience because of years out of the labor force. But the Act did not state that women and men should receive the same pay regardless of work experience, occupation, or level of education. The Act acknowledged that pay differences based on these factors are not discrimination.
The Paycheck Fairness Act was about women receiving the same pay as men for doing the same work. It’s time we hold our Congressional representatives to the national principle that everyone (regardless of gender, race, national origin, or religion) deserves equal pay for equal work.
Mariko Lin Chang, PhD, is a former Associate Professor of Sociology at Harvard University. She currently works with universities to diversify their faculty and also works as an independent consultant specializing in data analysis of wealth inequality in the US. Chang is the author of Shortchanged: Why Women Have Less Wealth and What Can Be Done About It.
