Equal Pay in the Work Place

By Dottye Blake

Women's Interests

In 1963, President Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act into law. This made it illegal to discriminate against a worker on the basis of gender. 43 ears later, the salary gap between men and women in the United States has decreased by only 15 cents, now being 74 cents, as reported by the U.S. Census Bureau. Equal pay is most often found in workers in the 16 to 24 age group, in which women earn more than 90 percent of what men do; however, the difference becomes 75 percent in the 25 to 54 year old group - those at the pinnacle of their careers and life responsibilities.

What are the factors that have contributed to the gap between men's and women's wages? First of all, there is the practice of "occupational segregation", in which women are channeled or steered into low paying jobs. Women have lower levels of union membership. Despite some social progress, there still remain prejudiced attitudes that have set up barriers which prevent women from achieving equality in the workplace. Along with this, traditional "women's work" is undervalued in most societies, despite the fact that if women stopped doing their work, everything would come to a screeching halt.

The Equal Pay Act (part of the Fair Labor Standards Act), precludes employers from compensating women disparately for jobs that are "substantially equal", that is, almost the same. Traditionally, women have worked in different occupations than men. I remember reading the want ads in the 1970's with two separate listings for "Help Wanted- Male" and Help Wanted- Female". These jobs tend to be vastly different, pay less and grant less authority to the worker. Equity means fair-mindedness, impartiality, and justice, blind to gender differences of the workers. Despite a valiant effort in the 1970's and early 1980's, the Equal Right Amendment to the United States Constitution, which would have guaranteed equal pay and treatment for women and girls in the workplace, was blocked from passage.

Will gender-based wage inequality ever be solved for good? If women and men keep accepting the idea that work traditionally classified as "women's work" is not significant enough for management to fully value, the gender difference in salaries will never close. To make the salary gap vanish, we must stop believing that the rules are gender-neutral and that men simply follow them better than women do. Each individual employer must be made to take another look at stereotypical ideas that mistakenly place higher monetary value on "men's work" vs. the type of work women do. The primary step in ending the wage gap is for all of us to throw away the outdated idea that, to be paid equitably, a woman must "make it in a man's world." This world is for all of us!

About the Author Dottye is a Realtor in Central Florida, an internet marketer, and a wife, mother and grandmother. She is the published author of a book and several short stories, songs, articles and poems. For more information, please visit my blog: http://a-womansplace.blogspot.com

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