Gender Pay Gap: Are Women Paid Fairly in the Workplace?

Pay Equity in the States

“…The National Perspective Extant federal laws-which include the Equal Pay Act of 1963 and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964-pertain to equal pay for equal work; in effect, they apply only to work within a single establishment (Billitteri, 2008;Giapponi & McEvoy, 2006;National Women's Law Center, 2010). Comparable worth, or pay equity, law would not require that positions be compared to others within the same establishment.…”

“…Some say that federal laws are not being adequately enforced, whereas others say that additional legislation is needed at the federal level (see Billitteri, 2008). Blau and others state that once the factors above have been controlled for-educational attainment, labor force experience, occupational segregation, and so on-64% of the wage gap remains unexplained (Blau & Kahn, 2006;Blau et al, 1998).…”

“…Ironically, although pay equity advocates today look for the descriptor "comparable" to indicate a state' legal endorsement of pay equity, in the 1940s many women-espousing the legal equality path mentioned previously-preferred "equal pay for equal work," supposedly in order to "avoid misunderstanding and confusion" (Kessler-Harris, 2003, p. 290). Circuit Court of appeals overturned that ruling in an opinion written by Anthony Kennedy (Billitteri, 2008). Two court cases that are often analyzed in terms of their lack of impact on pay equity/comparable worth policy are County of Washington v. Gunther (1981), in which female prison guards ("matrons") were paid less to guard female prisoners than male guards ("deputy sheriffs") were to guard male prisoners (Billitteri, 2008) and AFSCME v. the State of Washington (1985) in which the state had conducted a massive classification and compensation study that showed that women's jobs in state employment were systematically undervalued by a total of US$800 million; funds were committed to rectify the situation.…”