06.05.07
Fair Pay Act
Surprise! Congress is once again preparing to squash a gnat with a sledgehammer. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, “In 2005, women who were full-time wage and salary workers had median weekly earnings of $585, or 81 percent of the $722 median for their male counterparts.” (Click here for the report.) Cait Murphy, assistant managing editor of Fortune, reports on this issue and the proposed legislative remedy. I highly recommend reading her article, as it is both thorough and balanced.
Murphy makes two major points:
- Women are more likely than men to take time away from their careers. While part-time employment is not directly reflected in this survey, one can reasonably expect that single-minded pursuit of a career will advance a worker to more prominent (and lucrative) positions than choosing to put family first for a decade.
- Jobs that are dominated by women tend to pay less than “comparable” jobs that are dominated by men. Liberal arts majors (mostly female) earn less upon graduation than engineering majors (mostly male). Social workers earn less than parole officers. And so forth…
As Murphy argues, both of these factors reflect free choices by the affected individuals, not discrimination. It is not appropriate for the government to override the free market in these matters, nor is it possible to imagine Federal involvement resulting in anything but a tangled mess!
I would nonetheless disagree with her on one point. These “individual choices” are made within a broader cultural context that discourages individuals from pursuing choices that are at odds with their gender roles. The choices are not coerced, yet neither are they truly free.
As an example, the top-level high school math courses in my experience are predominately male, yet in every class the girls (on average) outperform the boys. A boy is more likely to attempt the work in a higher-level class, even if his grades are disappointing. The girls are more easily discouraged, sometimes asking to drop to a lower level in the first two weeks of school! The boys are more likely to describe themselves, or be described by teachers, as “bright but lazy”. Girls are more likely to be described as “hardworking, but not especially bright”. While part of this assessment of girls reflects differences in personality (girls at this age tend to be calmer but less self-confident), I believe we tend to systematically underrate their mathematical talent.
Some gender differences are natural, yet I believe the emphasis on gender roles is destructive. We should strive to recognize the talents of every individual, whatever direction they may lead, rather than attempting to force our children into pre-defined boxes.
Spok said,
June 5, 2007 at 4:56 pm
A more pressing pay equity issue that I hope Congress can fix soon is undoing the effect of the recent Ledbetter v. Goodyear Supreme Court decision. There, the court essentially ruled that companies could get away with sex discrimination in wage increases if the person discriminated against didn’t take action within 180 days of the original disparity.
It basically disclaimed any responsibility for fixing the inequity in the common case where the employee doesn’t discover the pay discrimination until later on (and where the effects of that discrimination have since been magnified, since later salary adjustments are typically based on earlier salary levels).
Whether or not you think the Supremes were principled or just passing the buck, it’s clear that Congress can fix this loophole in the law, by giving a longer period for pay discrimination suits (such as starting the clock at the time of *discovery* of discrimination, instead of the time of the initial discriminatory act) . I don’t know if there’s yet a bill for this in Congress, but there should be one.
(On a tangent, I found it a bit odd that the article didn’t seem to mention the case at all, though it’s quite relevant, and was decided a week before the article’s dateline. And the article also didn’t link to or cite the bill it was talking about: S. 1087, online at http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:s1087:
Then I realized that the article was probably written for print, where issues are routinely post-dated, and people aren’t expected to follow hyperlinks or put bill numbers into search engines. Funny how expectations for journalism change in the online era…)
Michael Webb said,
July 2, 2007 at 12:46 am
This is an issue that has always bothered me.
I have always worked in arenas where pay equity hasn’t really been an issue-if you are duly licensed, you’re pretty much hired.
What bothers me is that pay inequities don’t make sense. If I’m running an ad agency, I want the best people to make the most clever, funny ads, right? There isn’t any reason to not pay people equally-in fact, there’s a disincentive, because I don’t want to lose talented women to the competition.
I guess the problem comes in when you consider the notion of equal work. Parents, in my experience, can be kind of self righteous, but the unmarried guy who works until 11pm every night has got to be more productive, doesn’t he? And aren’t I going to lose him too if I don’t over pay him?
Pontifex said,
July 3, 2007 at 3:40 pm
MW,
Pay inequities *do* make sense. I’ve been doing my work for twenty years, and I know so much more about the tools, the production cycle, client relations… and what I know and how I can apply it in less time than someone else should be reflected in my pay. Also, I’m damn good at what I do, and that merits more pay: otherwise, why would I have worked/listened/applied so much? So many 11pm nights even with kids. So many weekends.
And what I’m saying is encapsulated in my first sentence.
Matt said,
July 9, 2007 at 1:22 pm
Here’s my plan:
1) Start a business
2) Hire only women
3) Pay them 81 cents on the dollar for the same work as if I had male employees
4) Undercut all existing competitors by 25% on price
5) Watch the money roll in