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Pay Equity Empirical Inquiries (1989) / Chapter Skim
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Pay Equity: Assessing the Issues
Pages 1-20

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From page 1...
... "Comparable worth" or"pay equity" has been proposed, along with equal employment opportunity and affirmative action, as a strategy to eliminate gender bias from the labor market, particularly in the determination of wages. Comparable worth or pay equity strategies generally rely on the use 1 of objective criteria to value the content and requirements of jobs job evaluation)
From page 2...
... the gender difference is linked to the undervaluation of jobs held disproportionately by women; (3) the jobs can be objectively evaluated such that an appropriate level of compensation can be determined by some mechanism other than competitive labor market forces (or that removes the effects of gender bias from market forces)
From page 3...
... THE EMPIRICAL INQUIRIES Gender Differences in Wages: Wage Determination for Indivicluals Male-Femate Salaries and Promotions in a Large, Private Firm The Gerhart and Milkovich paper investigates gender differences in wages ant] labor market treatment controlling for personal characteristics.
From page 4...
... The answer to each of these questions is no women fare better than PAY EQUITY: EMPIRICAL INQUIRIES men. Women's salaries rose more rapidly than men's, and over the period 1980-1986, women "had a distinct promotion advantage," say Gerhart and Milkovich.
From page 5...
... We call this the potential experience index. The measure may be a better indicator of labor market experience for white men than for white women, because women traditionally have spent more of their adult lifetime outside the labor market.
From page 6...
... and by the employment rate of women of that age compared with the other age. Nakamura and Nakamura suggest that there are two reasons why we should expect women with relatively low levels of ecluPAY EQUITY: EMPIRICAL INQUIRIES cation, those who are black, and those with children to be especially vulnerable to labor market crowding: (1)
From page 7...
... The evidence over the 6 years following 1980 indicates that women who had less initial experience have had more promotions ancT raises and that the gender gap in wages was smaller, although not eliminated, by 1986. Nakamura and Nakamuras paper looks to the national job process and identifies three subsets of women who, they believe, are easily vulnerable to labor market crowding.
From page 8...
... Thus, the "percent female" of a job or occupation has become a variable of note. In the papers that use the job as the unit of analysis, Baron and Newman find that both female dominance ancT minority dominance of jobs in the California civil service system lower the wage rate for those jobs; Parcel also finds negative effects for percent PAY EQUITY: EMPIRICAL INQUIRIES female for male, but not for female, employees; and Filer finds the effect small and insignificant for both genders.
From page 9...
... If it had the demographic composition of the average full-time white female's job (which is 18 percent white male, 47 percent white fe male, 3 percent black male, 9 percent black female, etc.
From page 10...
... Smith finds Parcel's work skillful and sensible, but he questions the whole line of PAY EQUITY: EMPIRICAL INQUIRIES inquiry that includes as an explanatory variable the occupation's percent female. He argues that such a variable does not add to our knowledge about how wages are set in labor markets or whether there is or is not discrimination.
From page 11...
... Baron and Newman do find a systematic tendency for jobs held disproportionately by women to have lower starting pay than apparently comparable jobs held disproportionately by men. Filer's strategy for adjusting for average productivity differences between the occupations and the universe from which his data are drawn are very different from Baron ant!
From page 12...
... In early 1985 the new system went into effect, at an estimated wage-bill cost to the state of about $19 million annually roughly $1,000 per employee. Orazem and Mattila take the state pay PAY EQUITY: EMPIRICAL INQUIRIES schedule of December 1983 (before comparable worth)
From page 13...
... The pay equity legislation of 1982 built on that scheme, requiring a single job evaluation system for all job classifications in the state employment system. The evaluation measured the skill, effort, responsibility, and working conditions off each job and yielded a composite score for each job.
From page 14...
... Likewise, the survey indicates the actual policy of pay equity was well known to the respondents: 82 percent of them ha(l heard of pay equity or comPAY EQUITY: EMPIRICAL INQUIRIES parable worth legislation. Evans and Nelson characterize the specific understanding of the (letaits of pay equity as "quite knowIedgeable," based on the respondents' answers to the questions in the survey.
From page 15...
... A standar(l (lecomposition analysis is performed to see if the observed differences in weekly earnings of full-time workers are attributable to differences in the human capital endowments of men and women, that is, to differences in schooling, job experience, marital status, and the presence of children. Although the statistical mode} for each country performs reasonably well, and to a similar degree, as an explanation of the variation in earnings among men and women, it does not explain why women earn so much more relative to men in AustraTia.
From page 16...
... In Britain, too, the authors describe a predominantly regulated wage structure in which national agreements involving large unions set rates of pay for a wide range of workers. Explicit discrimination against women in pay rates characterized the British labor market, say Gregory anti his colleagues, until the Equal Pay Act of 1970, which became effective in December 1975.
From page 17...
... a significant net effect on wages of percent female in an occupation, when other factors, such as productivity differences and job requirements are taken into account. The Baron and Newman study of listed starting salaries of jobs in the California civil service provi(les perhaps the most dramatic results: When women or minorities enter occupations the starting salaries fall, everything else, including job requirements, being equal.
From page 18...
... The studies reported here suggest several new directions for research. Nakamura and Nakamura's investigation of the crowding process finds that in states where there are more young women, relative to others, their PAY EQUITY: EMPIRICAL INQUIRIES wages are lower and that women with fewer years of eclucation and more children are more affected by crowding than others.
From page 19...
... How are female earnings and the (listribution of family income relate(l? Differences in the roles of women and men in regard to the important social responsibility of raising children may have significant labor market implications.


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