Pay Equity Empirical Inquiries (1989) / Chapter Skim
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5. Pay the Man: Effects of Demographic Composition of Prescribed Wage Rates in the California Civil Service
5. Pay the Man: Effects of Demographic Composition of Prescribed Wage Rates in the California Civil Service
Pages 107-133
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From page 107... ...
This paper tries to help fill that void by examining how the prescribed pay rates of jobs vary as a function of the demographic composition of incumbents in those jobs. The data we analyze have several potential advantages.
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From page 108... ...
The California civil service is arguably as rationalized and subject to intense scrutiny and pressures for egalitarian reform as any personnel system in the private sector. State governments may also have greater slack with which to absorb pay equity costs than most Private enterprises do (Killingsworth, 1985~.
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From page 109... ...
Therefore, we report separate cross-sectional results for newly created versus "enduring" positions, which enables us to assess whether tendencies toward devaluation are less pervasive in recent cohorts of jobs. Finally, we hypothesize that the effects of changing demographic composition on pay rates depend on the extent of employment growth in a job.
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From page 110... ...
We analyze data describing state employment as of both dates, and in our longitudinal analyses, we look at the effects of changes in demographic composition on prescribed pay rates over that 6-year period. Because California is currently involved in a suit brought by the California State Employees Association (Service Employees International Union)
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From page 111... ...
. CROSS-SECTIONAL ANALYSES Effects of Demographic Composition Table 5-1 provides descriptive statistics for base pay rates anc]
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From page 112... ...
At Coo.
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From page 114... ...
In other words, our analyses only assess comparable worth within occupational families, not across disparate types of jobs, such as nurses versus gardeners. All differences in pay rates across cletailecI occupational groups—including some that may have to JO with the sex and race of incumbentswere removed from moclels F through I before we assessed the effects of demographic composition.
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From page 115... ...
in labor force experience than in formal schooling, our conservative procedure increases the chances that training requirements will absorb the gross effect of sex composition on pay rates. We coded educational ancI experience requirements for 406 positions that employed 32, 719 full-time civil servants in 1985 (27 percent of the work force whose jobs were analyzed in Table 5-2~.
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From page 116... ...
Moreover, controls for major EEOC job class and major schematic (in(lustry) group in Table 5-3 generally do not add much explanatory power once educational anal experience requirements are already controlled, nor does their inclusion seem to absorb much of the effects of demographic composition on pay rates (compare models F and H in Table 5-3~.
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From page 117... ...
column uses coefficients from model G of Table 5-2, which controls for demographic composition, the 20 EEOC job categories, and 99 cletaile(l occupational schematic categories. (The predicte(l pay rate pertains to a nonsupervisory clerical position within the occupational category "office and allie(l services general"~.
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From page 118... ...
. dNumbers in parentheses give percent white male, white female, black male, black female, Hispanic male, Hispanic female, "other" male, and "other" female, respectively.
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From page 119... ...
Compared with the average white male's job, the position would have an entry pay rate of roughly $370 less per 9The use of different implicit reference points in computing predicted pay rates in each column of Table 5-4 affects the absolute size of the predicted values in the table, but not the size of the penalties associated with differences in demographic composition, which is the major focus of the table. 119 month if it hac!
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From page 120... ...
(Using logarithms enabled us to examine how demographic composition affects pay rates in proportionate, rather than absolute, terms, thereby circumventing any confusion caused by the inflation of pay rates between 1979 and 1985. These analyses reveal that the wage penalties associated with the presence of blacks and male Hispanics in jobs had actually increased significantly by 1985, even after controlling for the 20 major EEOC job classes and 99 occupational schematic categories.
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From page 121... ...
Improvement seems to have been particularly prevalent in jobs having a disproportionate share of female Hispanic incumbents: In 1979, a 10 point increase in the proportion of female Hispanics was associated with a 12.7 percent decline in the starting pay rate; by 1985, that same change in demographic composition was associated with a net penalty of 5 percent. These results suggest that the pay equity movement, which has been defined as a "women's" issue, may have lowered the penalties associated with jobs dominated by white and Hispanic women between 1979 and 1985.
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From page 122... ...
assesses the effects of demographic composition and change on pay rates by comparing jobs in the same specific line of Supplementary analyses that measured 1985 and 1979 pay rates in a logarithmic metric revealed the same general pattern of results, as did analyses allowing for nonlinear effects of change in demographic composition between 1979 and 1985.
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From page 123... ...
and Changes in Demographic Composition (1979-1985) on 1985 Prescribed Minimum Monthly Starting Pay in 2,285 California Civil Service Jobs 123 Model 1a Model 2a Variable b p b p Percent female, 1979 .495 .010b - .041 .848 Percent black, 1979 - 1.192 .012 - 1.981 <.001 Percent Hispanic, 1979 - 6.251 <.001 - 1.599 .002 Percent other minorities, 1979 .893 .070 - .769 .091 Percent black female, 1979 - 1.810 .085 .799 .366 Percent Hispanic female, 1979 - 11.267 <.001 4.423 <.001 Percent other female, 1979 - 1.902 .063 .532 .511 Change in percent female - 2.446 <.001 - 2.661 <.001 Change in percent black - 4.071 <.001 - 1.467 .006 Change in percent Hispanic - .319 .592 .038 .931 Change in percent other .882 .098 - .041 .918 .
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From page 124... ...
, these analyses strongly point to a real organizational devaluation in the perceived worth of positions as women an(l minorities enter them. By focusing on changes in pay rates rather than average wages actually receive(1 in each job, and by including 1979 pay rate and demographic composition as control variables, our longitudinal analyses preempt a criticism sometimes levele(1 at this literature namely, that the apparent wage "peni4These results weight jobs based on the number of incumbents and are therefore unlikely to be affected by extreme values for percentage growth associated with very small job categories (e.
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From page 125... ...
We have reported results from models that control for educational and experience requirements of jobs and for occupational distinctions, at varying levels of detail, in assessing the elects of demographic composition on wage rates. Readers can make their own judgments about the extent of devaluation, (lepending on how broadly or narrowly they think "comparability" among work roles should be construed.
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From page 126... ...
have suggested, for instance, that such stereotypes evolved in computing occupations after an initial period of ambiguity about the appropriate personnel in various computer-relate(l jobs. Taken together, our fin(lings concerning trends seem to indicate that in a large bureaucratic labor market, such as the California civil service, progress toward pay equity is harder to achieve among enduring, inert jobs, especially under circumstances of declining employment, than among newly created positions in the system.
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From page 127... ...
Sloan Foundation and from the Center staffis gratefully acknowleciged. Officials at the California State Personnel Board, Department of Personnel Administration, Controller's Office, and the California State Employees Association were extremely generous in providing access to data and answering innumerable questions, but they bear no responsibility for the conclusions of this paper.
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From page 128... ...
Sacramento: State of California. California State Department of Personnel Administra tion 1982 Report to the California Legislature and Ex clusive Representatives of State Employees on Information Relevant to the Salaries for Female-Dominated Jobs.
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From page 129... ...
Job Category Codes 01 Clerical 02 Supervisory clerical 03 Semiskilled workers 04 Crafts/tracles 05 Supervisory crafts/trades 06 Professional 07 Supervisory professional 08 Subprofessional/technical 09 Supervisory subprofessional/technical 10 Law enforcement II. Sample Schematic Arrangement of Classes (Al Office and Allied Services A
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From page 130... ...
Law enforcement consult. Special investigator PAY EQUITY: EMPIRICAL INQUIRIES C
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From page 131... ...
The state is currently involved in litigation with the largest of its employee unions, the California State Employees Association (CSEA) /Service Employees International Union (SEIU)
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From page 132... ...
jobs (luring the period analyze(l a useful breakdown. Quite interestingly for enduring jobs, (levaluation of black female and minority mate jobs, even controlling for job content, increased between 1979 an(1 1985, whereas, perhaps in response to pay equity pressure, the penalties associated with white and Hispanic female jobs clecTined.
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From page 133... ...
The existence of disparities, even using detailed occupational and educational/experiential controls, points to the importance of having correctly classified jobs and of assigning them correctly to a job family and pay rate at the point of creation or revision. Often, female job characteristics are not adequately valued or are explicitly devalued.
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