{"id":1347,"date":"2014-06-23T15:58:23","date_gmt":"2014-06-23T15:58:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/families\/?p=24"},"modified":"2014-06-23T15:58:23","modified_gmt":"2014-06-23T15:58:23","slug":"the-equal-pay-act-turns-51-this-month","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/2014\/06\/23\/the-equal-pay-act-turns-51-this-month\/","title":{"rendered":"The Equal Pay Act Turns 51 This Month"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Ten of the nation\u2019s top experts on women in the workforce provided history, facts, and analysis of in <a href=\"https:\/\/contemporaryfamilies.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/2013_Symposium_Equal-Pay.pdf\">CCF\u2019s symposium<\/a> <\/em>(.pdf)<em> on the Golden Jubilee of the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Equal_Pay_Act_of_1963\">Equal Pay Act<\/a> last June, 2013, all edited by Stephanie Coontz. For the 51<sup>st<\/sup> anniversary\u2014and coinciding with today\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/workingfamiliessummit.org\/\">White House Summit on Working Families<\/a><\/em>\u2014<em>here\u2019s an overview by Virginia Rutter and Stephanie Coontz<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><figure style=\"width: 323px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/3\/32\/American_Association_of_University_Women_members_with_President_John_F._Kennedy_as_he_signs_the_Equal_Pay_Act_into_law.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"323\" height=\"172\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">By Abbie Rowe (JFK Presidential Library and Museum) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons<\/figcaption><\/figure><em>It is now fifty-one years ago<\/em> this month, on June 10, 1963, President John F. Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act, amending the earlier Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, to \u201cprohibit discrimination on account of sex in the payment of wages by employers.\u201d So, how\u2019s that going? The Council on Contemporary Families convened an online symposium last June representing the latest thinking from pre-eminent work-family scholars, top woman executive Sheryl Sandberg, and advocates for low-wage workers and unions.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The good news: Gains in pay, education, and opportunity<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Women\u2019s pay in the United States has gone from 59 percent of men\u2019s in 1962 to almost 80 percent today. Less than 14 percent of women were managers then; three times as many are now. Seven percent of wives out earned their spouses then; 28 percent do now (See <a href=\"https:\/\/contemporaryfamilies.org\/gender-equality-family-egalitarianism-follows-workplace-opportunity\/\">Cohen<\/a>).<\/li>\n<li>Today, women in the U.S. make up nearly half of the paid workforce (See <a href=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/2014\/06\/23\/unions-and-women\/\">Milkman<\/a>)\u2014something not true even in gender-egalitarian Scandinavian countries: Norway and Finland are at 44 percent (See <a href=\"https:\/\/contemporaryfamilies.org\/trends-global-gender-equity\/\">Seguino<\/a>).<\/li>\n<li>In education, U.S. women now earn nearly half of all law and medical degrees and a majority of BAs. The good news extends internationally, even to countries with very traditional gender mores: Over the past 35 years, the Arab region saw a remarkable rise in the ratio of female to male secondary enrollment rates, from 59 to 98 percent; in the same time, Africa rose from 54 to 85 percent (See <a href=\"https:\/\/contemporaryfamilies.org\/trends-global-gender-equity\/\">Seguino<\/a>).<\/li>\n<li>Women\u2019s earnings influence life at home. Each thousand dollars of earnings for women is associated with a 14-minute reduction in daily housework\u2014and working wives\u2019 proportion of housework has dropped significantly since the early 1960s (See <a href=\"https:\/\/contemporaryfamilies.org\/gender-equality-family-egalitarianism-follows-workplace-opportunity\/\">Cohen<\/a>).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>The semi-good news<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>University of Maryland\u2019s Philip <a href=\"https:\/\/contemporaryfamilies.org\/gender-equality-family-egalitarianism-follows-workplace-opportunity\/\">Cohen<\/a> reports that in 1962 wives did six times more housework as husbands. Today they do only 1.7 times as much. You\u2019d think that if this rate of change continued, before 2023 men and women would be doing exactly the same. But, according to Cohen, that is not how it has worked. There hasn\u2019t been any appreciable change in shares of housework since the early 1990s, and he shows that the stall in housework equity is related to a stall in pay equity.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Looks like a victory, sounds like a victory, but is it really a victory?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The rise in women\u2019s educational attainment has not been accompanied by a proportionate expansion of their political voice. Women hold 18.3 percent of seats in the U.S. Congress. University of Vermont\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/contemporaryfamilies.org\/trends-global-gender-equity\/\">Stephanie Seguino profiles<\/a> representation around the world: \u201cThe global average in 2010 was 19 percent, ranging from a low regional average of 8 percent in Arab countries to a high of 26 percent in rich countries. (Sweden stands out amongst rich countries at 45 percent, surpassed only by Rwanda at 56 percent).\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Bias against women continues. Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg reports, \u201cEven in the U.S., a recent study found that when faculty evaluated identical lab manager applications, the one with a man\u2019s name on it received a higher starting salary.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And some of the relative gains for women do not represent actual improvement in their wages but declines in men\u2019s wages. \u201cIn 1979, the median hourly wage for women was 62.7 percent of the median hourly wage for men; by 2012, it was 82.8 percent. However, a big chunk of that improvement \u2013 more than a quarter of it \u2014 happened because of men\u2019s wage losses, rather than women\u2019s wage gains,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/contemporaryfamilies.org\/mens-declining-wages\/\">reports Heidi Shierholz<\/a> from the Economic Policy Institute. Similarly, <a href=\"https:\/\/contemporaryfamilies.org\/trends-global-gender-equity\/\">Seguino reports<\/a> that in 96 of the 135 countries where gender employment gaps have narrowed since 1991, the convergence is partly accounted for by declines in men\u2019s employment rates.<\/p>\n<p>With women as with men, elites are taking a greater share of growth in income. In 2010, high earning women made more than 1.5 times as much as the typical man, reports Northwestern\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/contemporaryfamilies.org\/top-20-percent-against-bottom-80\/\">Leslie McCall<\/a>, more than in previous decades. But in a new development earnings have been flat for the typical woman over the last decade. This means that women\u2019s success continues to be concentrated at the top of the ladder. Women in the middle and the bottom have been losing relative ground along with men during this period of growing inequality. (Keep in mind, Catalyst reports, women\u2019s gains at the very top have been modest: four percent of the Fortune 500 CEOs are women.)<\/p>\n<p>The interaction of gender and race inequality produces an optical illusion about the progress of minority women. At first glance it may appear that there is more gender equality among minority men and women than among whites. Jane Farrell and Sarah Jane Glynn, from the Center for American Progress, <a href=\"https:\/\/contemporaryfamilies.org\/gender-pay-gap-race-ethnicity\/\">report that Hispanic or Latina women<\/a> make 88 percent of what Latinos do and African American women make 90 percent of what their male counterparts make, whereas white women earn just 81 percent of what white men make.<\/p>\n<p>But when we add race to gender, these pay gaps become a veritable chasm. African American women earn 36 percent less than white men and Latinas a mere 45 percent. The gap between the earnings of Asian women and white men is smaller, just 12 percent, but Asian American women earn just 73 percent of what Asian American men make.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Trouble spots: What public sector unions have to do with women\u2019s equality<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>CUNY\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/contemporaryfamilies.org\/what-unions-do-for-women\/\">Ruth Milkman reports<\/a> how unions\u2014and women in them\u2014spearheaded the campaign for the Equal Pay Act, even though they made up only 18.3 percent of members. Today, women make up 45 percent of all union members, but unions have declined: In 1960 one in four workers was in a union; today, that is down to one in ten. The historic decline hit private sector unions, where male unions used to be strong, first and hardest, says Milkman. But \u201cstarting in 2011, a wave of state-level legislation weakening collective bargaining rights for public sector workers has directly targeted teachers and other unionized female-dominated occupations.\u201d\u00a0 This attack is a real problem since women union workers earn an average of more than $5 an hour more than nonunion ones and have more benefits and job security as well\u2014and nonunion workers in unionized fields benefit from this advantage.<\/p>\n<p><strong>More trouble spots: bias against caregivers<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>University of Massachusetts\u2019 <a href=\"https:\/\/contemporaryfamilies.org\/policies-promote-gender-pay-equality\/\">Joya Misra reports<\/a> that penalties facing working mothers \u2013 but not working fathers \u2014 are now the major source of gender pay differences. Stanford\u2019s Shelley <a href=\"https:\/\/contemporaryfamilies.org\/equal-pay-yet-mothers\/\">Correll<\/a> explains: \u201cWhen we compare the earnings of mothers and childless women who work in the same types of jobs, have the same level of education, have the same amount of experience and are equal on a host of other dimensions, mothers still earn five percent lower hourly wages per child.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mothers also face difficulties getting hired in the first place. On average, <a href=\"https:\/\/contemporaryfamilies.org\/equal-pay-yet-mothers\/\">Correll<\/a>\u2019s studies show, when employers compare a childless woman and a mother with the same qualifications, the mother is rated as less committed to her job, despite the absence of any evidence supporting this perception, and this substantially reduces her chances of getting the job.<\/p>\n<p>University of California, Hastings School of Law\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/contemporaryfamilies.org\/pregnancy-accommodation-as-the-new-frontier\/\">Joan Williams reports<\/a> on a number of remarkable cases that highlight a legal strategy for addressing such bias: \u201cOne vitally important and fast-developing area of law is family responsibilities discrimination (FRD), which involves pregnant women or mothers, fathers who seek an active role in family care, or adults caring for elders or ill family members.\u201d FRD suits grew 400 percent in the decade before 2008.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What else can we do? Change policy and attitudes<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cMotherhood penalties vary substantially cross-nationally, suggesting that social policies can reduce or exacerbate them,\u201d explains <a href=\"https:\/\/contemporaryfamilies.org\/policies-promote-gender-pay-equality\/\">Joya Misra<\/a>. For example, Misra explains, \u201cThe per-child wage penalty is 9.5 percent in countries with minimal public childcare for infants and toddlers, but shrinks to 4.3 percent in countries with more expansive public childcare programs.\u201d Availability of leave matters\u2014too little is harmful to women\u2019s opportunities, but so is too much. Misra reports, \u201cEmployment and wages also may suffer when mothers are offered very long, unpaid\/poorly paid leaves, such as three-year \u2018care leaves.\u2019 Here mothers lose valuable job experience, and may find themselves in jobs with little prospect for career advancement.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Facebook\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/contemporaryfamilies.org\/gender-bias-and-the-fight-for-equal-pay\/\">Sheryl Sandberg<\/a>\u2014who just recently started LeanIn.org\u2013reminds us that women have internalized some of the social prejudices against them, starting with lower salary expectations, for instance, which provides employers with an excuse for offering them less. She argues that wome must cooperate to improve their own self-confidence as well as to change the attitudes of others<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ten of the nation\u2019s top experts on women in the workforce provided history, facts, and analysis of in CCF\u2019s symposium (.pdf) on the Golden Jubilee of the Equal Pay Act last June, 2013, all edited by Stephanie Coontz. For the 51st anniversary\u2014and coinciding with today\u2019s White House Summit on Working Families\u2014here\u2019s an overview by Virginia [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1903,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8959,1],"tags":[29822,55,13,11338],"class_list":["post-1347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-families","category-uncategorized","tag-family-policy","tag-gender","tag-inequality","tag-unions"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1903"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1347\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}