Talk:Equal pay for women

There is an additional theory that men matter in closing the wage gap, and that the wage gap is a parenting issue. This co-sexuality (cosexual), or cooperative sexes movement, was begun by Rachel Bondi and the Earning Power organization in 2005. It was a Stevie Award finalist for online association of the year.

Yikes -- the dataset is very confusing. It would be a million times better if presented in graphical format. Adding to my "to-do" list. ZuG 21:04, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

There is a lot of information on this topic: http://www.si.umich.edu/~yanchen/papers/demog20050315.pdf http://neweconomist.blogs.com/new_economist/2006/07/menstruation.html Gneezy, Uri, Muriel Niederle, and Aldo Rustichini. Performance in competitive environments: Gender differences. Quarterly Journal of Economics CXVIII, August 2003: 1049-1074.

Comparable Worth differs from Equal Pay issues
Comparable Worth differs from Equal Pay issues It's a mistake to redirect "comparable worth" to Equal Pay. They are quite different.

Equal Pay deals with equal pay for identical work, as legislated in the U.S.

Comparable Worth is a much broader and different topic, recognized in the Canadian Bill of Rights and in the EU charter, as requiring remuneration treatment that is blind to race, sex, national origin, and other protected class status for equivalent or comparable but not necessarily identical work. US case law has clarified that the EEOC will only prosecute a claim that identical work has been differentially paid due to an illegal bias. But it ignores the more frequent and more common reality that jobs that are NOT identical but vary in small detail are paid disproportionately less when held by protected classes than the content variences would statistically predict. That is "comparable worth"... the concept that differences in pay should not be related to protected class status, whether the jobs worked are identical or not.

No advocate of Equal Pay or Comparable Worth has ever requested that Secretaries be paid the same as Truck Drivers, although that is the calumny most frequently raised by opponents as straw-man red-herring arguments for ridicule. One might respond, however, that a Secretary of Defense should be paid more than a Chauffer, right? That's what Comparable Worth implies: that every unique organization should have a non-discriminatory (although inevitably and properly unique) value system for the skill, effort, responsibility and working conditions required for each of its jobs. Whatever the value system is for men, it should be the same non-discriminatory system applied to jobs held by women and minorities, the aged, the disabled, etc. Each employer and/or enterprise deserves its own rightful unique internal value system, but those pay systems should not be designed nor applied in ways that create discriminatory effects. As Nina Rothschild, Personnel Head for the State of Minnesota used to say many years ago, "Your pay should not be determined by the shape of your genital organs."

Otherwise, you find what we still suffer in the United States: that even when you equalize every single variable of job content and human capital, women still are paid at least 20% less than a WASP (White Male Anglo-Saxon Protestant) doing work requiring the same skill, effort, responsibilty and under the same working conditions. No, it is NOT that women earn 72 cents for every dollar a man earns; differences in experience, seniority, continuity in work time and job/industry selected account for maybe ten cents of the differential. But more than 20 cents of that 28-cent shortfall remains statistically explained by nothing but the protected class status.

I've published on this subject for decades, going back to the 1970s, spoke on the subject at many national conferences on pay equity, including those sponsored by The Johnson Foundation, Professional Secretaries International (formerly NtnlSecAss and now AmerSocAdminProfs) and The Conference Board (their first national conference on Pay Equity at the Waldorf Astoria, which I chaired), co-authoried the NatCommPayEquity's Handbook on Job Evaluation and created most of the pay plans cited as models of pay equity for the General Accounting Office in a 1983 report to Congress... and absolutely nothing has changed.

Take a look at the seminal report about the study done of the pay of compensation professionals for the American Compensation Association back around 1983. If you can find it. It was quite embarrassing and they buried it. The PhD consultant who originally openly published the stepwise regression analysis results in a newsletter sent to all members revealed all the factors that predicted pay for the compensation executives who belonged to the professional society. Stuff like level of education, size of employer, industry identity, number of employees of the firm, number of subordinates in your department, job title, number of levels above you to the CEO, area of the nation, age, total years of experience, years with this employer.... every one of those predictive factors had a positive value which he published, enabling everyone to fill in their specific reality and see how many dollars each variable added to the survey-predicted pay. Until you got to sex, the very last variable: if you were female, you subtracted 17%. Maybe it was 19% or 15%... I'm an old guy and can't recall that detail any longer. But I certainly did share that detailed report with the National Committee on Pay Equity as the most authoritative proof of sex-related pay discrimination every published.

The real shame in our society is not unequal pay for identical work... "pay equity for pay identity". It is disproportionate pay differences for infintestimally small work content differences that perpetuate the systemic discrimination of past history. After all, why should employers pay women fairly if it means paying them more, when the women can't notice when you pay them less? If they got away with it in the past, as they have since before the dawn of recorded history, they will continue to contort themselves to continue trying to get away with it.

The proof is in the demographic results. If a woman enters a traditionally male dominated job, she will be highly paid as an exception valuable for EEO-1 reports. Women constituting up to 40% of the population will be equally (but not exceptionally) paid because it isn't worth the trouble for the employer to foist a discriminatory pay system on the female minority. But when women (or other protected classes) become the majority of the job class, watch out. The job will start to lose stature received relative less pay as years go on, compared to job classes still dominated by traditionally higher paid men. Man will desert these professions, bailing out as the job value drops relative to other male dominated job classes. It happened to Secretaries... they used to be high level executive assistants to corporate officers when they were male.

It has already happened again to the compensation profession, and dentists were next. Yes, those professions earn more today than ten or twenty years ago, but their gender-mixed professions have lost the peer relationships they used to have with comparable professions still dominated by men.

A study of "systemic discrimination" may be informative. Got a female-dominated job class? Just create a different job classification system for them. One job ranking or classification system for men and the few women in male-dominated jobs and another system for women and other undesirables. Or get more sophisticated and incorporate the discrimination in the very job valuation system, by using systemically discrimatory factors like reserving the highest pay for those who belong to male-only clubs or who are military combat veterans. Education used to be a popular criteria to exclude protected classes, until it happened that more women than men got college degrees, so that criteria was dropped lest it "improperly" create situations where women would be paid higher than men. It was just fine when the factor favored men, of course.

Or they create a policy rule that "no one can be promoted to xyz job unless they have taken at least five out of town trips requiring overnight stays." But the company, out of consideration to its Mommy Trackers, does not "impose" on its distaff personnel and is "so kind" by not requiring women to take overnight business trips. Of course, (darn, golly gee!) they thus never qualify for that promotion. Only men get the up elevator ride. That's just an example of how the system itself can create and perpetuate discrimination while (wink, nudge) appearing even-handed and fair.


 * I agree that equal pay and comparable worth are different topics. Although US plaintiff sometimes bring comparable worth claims based on Title VII and the EPA, the Federal Courts have been clear in their rejection of a comparable worth theory based on the Equal Pay Act.  Although the articles should cross-reference each other, they should be addressed separately. Bpiereck 19:58, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Yep, it's always a conspiracy when a difference in outcome exists. 194.80.32.9 (talk) 14:16, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

"Gap bigger in third world countries"?
The gender pay gap in Turkey sits at 12%1, which is far lower than that of countries like the UK, Germany and Finland (all +20%)2. Now this doesn't necessarily suggest better conditions for women; women's participation in the work force is lower in Turkey than in the said countries for instance. So I'm changing that to "most third world countries".

1http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6904434.stm 2http://ec.europa.eu/enlargement/pdf/turkey/screening_reports/screening_report_19_tr_internet_en.pdf

Turkey is not a third world country. It is a middle income developing nation which is hardly considered destitute, seeing as how it's an EU candidate. --Willescapesoon (talk) 08:58, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Popular culture
Created new section. Please do not delete; rather, discuss here on talk page. Thank you, 76.87.47.110 (talk) 01:37, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

"Popular Culture" sections -- especially loosely connected, unsourced, and minor list items saying, essentially, "I saw this bit flash by on TV last night" -- are deprecated on Wikipedia. So I'm deleteing this loosely connected, unsourced, and minor list items saying, essentially, "I saw this bit flash by on TV last night" item. --Calton | Talk 02:40, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Popular culture section?
I think it would be interesting to create a section, subsection, or perhaps a separate article, on references in popular culture, including literary and media references, involving Equal pay for women. 76.87.47.110 (talk) 06:26, 7 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Popular culture? In a serious topic like this? You gotta be kidding! SCFilm29 (talk) 23:41, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

POV?
This article reads more like an bulletin list of arguments aiming to discredit the existence of gender discrimination in regard to income. Shouldn't there be something here that actually provides background information and defines the topic?

Actually a Myth?
There is a lot of research out there showing that this 'gap' actually doesn't exist any more, at least in Western Europe and the USA. The research demonstrating its existence is rarely adjusted for variables such as marital status, children, life priorities etc. In the UK and USA young women earn MORE than their male counterparts. Women often go on to earn less on average over their careers due to the life choices they make. eg. see these articles: http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,2015274,00.html http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8044720.stm —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.231.41.1 (talk) 14:21, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Statistics?
I don't understand the "year you were born" statistics section... How is it relevant and what is it contributing to the topic? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kcalkin925 (talk • contribs) 02:11, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

BLACK WOMEN ARE WOMEN TOO
Stop saying race isn't a factor. Women of color are women too. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kcalkin925 (talk • contribs) 23:02, 5 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I really can't explain it to you in terms that are any more simple. Pigmey women are women too.  Retarded women are women.  Women in prison are women.  Women with bi-polar disorder are women.  Should we point out that these groups of women also make less money than men?  If, and only if, you can make a case that the disparity between white and black women is different from the disparity between white and black men can you even begin to make a case for adding content about this here.  Saying black women are women too is a fine statement of the obvious but, like the price of tea in China, it has nothing to do with Equal pay for women--Cybermud (talk) 03:11, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Cybermud, I couldn't disagree with you more. I hardly think it's fair to say that expanding on what "women" means, at least in the United States, is as irrelevant as the price of tea in China. And yes you're right, women in prison; bi-polar women, etc are women too. But how can you compare women of color to those groups of women? Women of color are born with race; it's not a disease or life choice.

Of course there is a difference between white and black women and white and black men-- are you insinuating there isn't? Yes it's true that black men also make less money than white men, but this isn't an article about how black men are underpaid in the United States. This is an article about how women are underpaid in the United States. Women includes black women, and it's important to recognize the differences. Why should people be grouped according to their race and not according to their gender? And if you do think black women's economic oppression should be included under "equal pay for blacks", are you hassling those editors to include women? Are you also hassling the editors of "equal pay for latino/as"? And "equal pay for people with disabilities"? And "equal pay for LGBT folks"? I think, probably not.

Also, in your section about the "different studies and economic theories" you mention the differences between the way customers will treat white and black salespeople. Why is it acceptable to discuss race in that section, but not in the section about how different women make different amounts of money? You also didn't seem to have a problem with me mentioning that lesbians and transfolks make less money than women of color. Why?

Also, I don't think the word "pigmey" is acceptable in our lexicon anymore, btw. (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 17:17, 28 December 2010 (UTC).
 * huh? What is this "your section" of mine you refer to?  I have no section and have not written anything about salespeople, nor have I written anything about race (I'm the one advocating for its removal...) Can you be clearer on what it is you disagree with?  I'm ok with you including stats on black women if, and only if, you compare them to BLACK MEN.  It's just fraudulently inflammatory to compare black women's wages with the average salary for all men in the article on equal pay for women.  It's a meaningless metric that compares fishes and bicycles.--Cybermud (talk) 19:09, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Washington and Minnesota State Actions
The section, although nominally sourced, has enough judgemental words (e.g., "unfortunately", and "staggering") that one doubts the reliablity of the sources, if accuractely quoted. Furthermore, both state actions refer to a "points" system, which may or not be determined by a credible (less strict than "reliable") organization.

As almost all of the sources are not online, I cannot verify their reliability or the accuracy of quotes. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 19:39, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Proposed Changes
I propose that in order to make this a better article that some more references, sections, and a little rewriting will help. By adding a section on race and how each race is affected by the pay gap will help people to know the challenges that other women face. It will also help give people an insight to how all women face the problem. Some reputable resources on similar topics that can be related to equal pay for women will give this article more views and a broader conception of the topic. I think that for the most part the article is well set-up but it has been tagged as being written as original research which basically mean that a lot of the information was not proved or was written as an opinion. Once this problem has been fixed then I think this article will be improved. Clwilson91 (talk) 17:36, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Merger with Gender Gap
Someone suggested that this page be merged with the Gender Gap parity page. But they didn't leave anything on this page as to why? I think this is worthy of discussion but it would be a major editing job to combine them.Gofigure41 18:54, 23 March 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gofigure41 (talk • contribs)

I can see how some sections of the Gender Wage Gap may also coincide with this Equal pay for women. However, I must interject that the two are mutually exclusive. The Equal pay for Women page deals exclusively with equal pay in regards to women. Whereas the Gender Wage Gap is not a female exclusive event. Gender Wage Gaps exist in many different occupations, being biased on both sides. I believe the articles should remain separate as to preserve the non-bias of the Gender Wage Gap. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.141.222.154 (talk) 02:21, 13 March 2013 (UTC)